Asakura-Oosawa equation

The theory of reversible helical polymerization of proteins has been fully described by Oosawa and Asakura (1975). The following equation describes polymer growth ... 

Flexible macromolecules. Calculations of the attractive potential energy according to equation (15.11) show that for spherical colloidal particles immersed in a dilute solution of rigid spheres, the attraction rarely exceeds k T. For articulated macromolecules, the configurational entropy of the chains is decreased in the neighbourhood of the interfaces and this provides a source of non-zero values for w(x,d). Asakura and Oosawa (1954) approximated this entropy decrement by analysing the problem in terms of the classical theory (Carslaw, 1921) for diffusion in a vessel with walls that absorb diffusing particles. The end result for parallel flat plates of area A is... 

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