Pérez-Mas, LuisRamos-Tejada, María del MarMartín-Molina, AlbertoMaroto-Centeno, José ALbertoQuesada-Pérez, Manuel2025-01-162025-01-162023-07-05L. Pérez-Mas, M.M. Ramos-Tejada, A. Martín-Molina, J.A. Maroto-Centeno, M. Quesada-Pérez; "Electrostatic hindrance to diffusion in flexible crosslinked gels: A coarse-grained simulation study"; J. Chem. Phys. 159, 014903 (2023)0021-9606DOI10.1063/5.0151353https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jcp/article-abstract/159/1/014903/2900734/Electrostatic-hindrance-to-diffusion-in-flexible?redirectedFrom=fulltexthttps://hdl.handle.net/10953/4001This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in J. Chem. Phys. 159, 014903 (2023) and may be found at https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jcp/article-abstract/159/1/014903/2900734/Electrostatic-hindrance-to-diffusion-in-flexible?redirectedFrom=fulltext.In this work, we study how electrostatic forces slow down the diffusion of solute in flexible gels through coarse-grained simulations. The model used explicitly considers the movement of solute particles and polyelectrolyte chains. These movements are performed by following a Brownian dynamics algorithm. The effect of three electrostatic parameters characterizing the system (solute charge, polyelectrolyte chain charge, and ionic strength) is analyzed. Our results show that the behavior of both the diffusion coefficient and the anomalous diffusion exponent changes upon the reversal of the electric charge of one of the species. In addition, the diffusion coefficient in flexible gels differs significantly from that in rigid gels if the ionic strength is low enough. However, the effect of chain flexibility on the exponent of anomalous diffusion is significant even at high ionic strength (100 mM). Our simulations also prove that varying the polyelectrolyte chain charge does not have exactly the same effect as varying the solute particle charge.engDiffusion coefficientElectrostaticsGelsNanoparticlesCoarse-grained modelCoarse-grained simulationsPolyelectrolytesBrownian DynamicsAnomalous DIffusioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/article2 Chemistry2.53 Polymers & Macromolecules2.53.371 Hydrogelsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess