Random walk configuration

Name three factors that affect a polymer s random walk configuration. How does each factor affect molecular volume ... 

For a semi-flexible tube in a dilute environment, local repulsive potentials among parts of the fiber induce a self-avoiding random walk configuration (swollen coil [151]). In a crowded environment, the depletive action may dominate and the fiber will tend to collapse on itself, forming a globular phase. We know from standard statistical physics of polymers that this latter phase... 

In the calculations, the standard state was chosen to be the state where the polymer chain has the random walk configuration, and the ratio of the volume of the gel V to the standard state V0 was determined through the following relation ... 

Tanaka and his coworkers have used Flory s formula with several modifications to understand a discrete phase transition in ionic gels. First, the term Vo IV in Eq. 3 was replaced by the term

volume fraction of the network on condition that the constituent polymer chains have random-walk configurations [5]. Flory assumed that the dry gel (in other words, the network formed by cross-linking of the unswollen polymer at volume V0) satisfies the condition of no polymer interactions i.e., covalently cross-linked PAAm gels in an acetone-water mixture therefore he claimed that the elastic term is generally not a function simply of V0/V (=[Pg.594]

Statistical-mechanical treatments of polymer adsorption at a planar surface have been pursued extensively using both analytical and Monte Carlo techniques. These procedures place polymer chain configurations in a one-to-one correspondence with random walk configurations on a lattice. While the analytical methods are limited to massless segments, and the Monte Carlo techniques are restricted to relatively short chains because of computational limitations, both provide results capable of experimental verification. The restriction to dilute solutions and non-interacting adsorbed molecules has been circumvented in recent theoretical treatments of concentrated pol3nner solutions. 

Figure 2.2 Representative section of a random walk configuration of a polymer coil...

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