Electrostatic interactions high charge density limit

The first theory of polyelectrolyte complex formation was proposed by Voom and Overbeek [14, 15]. This mean field model was used to describe the binodal compositions, the water content and the critical salt concentration as a function of the polymer chain length. This theoretical description uses the Debye-Hiickel approximation the approximations within the derivation of the electrostatic interaction free energy are therefore only valid at low charge densities. The correlation effects at high concentrations of salt and monomeric units are neglected, and ion pairing effects such as counterion condensation are not taken into account. Despite these limitations, the experimental results could be described reasonably well [13]. 

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