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This paper focuses on phase and aggregation behavior for linear chains composed of blocks of hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments. Phase and conformational transitions of patterned chains are relevant for understanding liquid–liquid separation of biomolecular condensates, which play a prominent role in cellular biophysics and for surfactant and polymer applications. Previous studies of simple models for multiblock chains have shown that, depending on the sequence pattern and chain length, such systems can fall into one of two categories: displaying either phase separation or aggregation into finite-size clusters. The key new result of this paper is that both formation of finite-size aggregates and phase separation can be observed for certain chain architectures at appropriate conditions of temperature and concentration. For such systems, a bulk dense liquid condenses from a dilute phase that already contains multi-chain finite-size aggregates. The computational approach used in this study involves several distinct steps using histogram-reweighting grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations, which are described in some level of detail.
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Sequence dependence of critical properties for two-letter chains
Histogram-reweighting grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations are used to obtain the critical properties of lattice chains composed of solvophilic and solvophobic monomers. The model is a modification of one proposed by Larson et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 83, 2411 (1985)], lowering the “contrast” between beads of different types to prevent aggregation into finite-size micelles that would mask true phase separation between bulk high- and low-density phases. Oligomeric chains of lengths between 5 and 24 beads are studied. Mixed-field finite-size scaling methods are used to obtain the critical properties with typical relative accuracies of better than 10−4 for the critical temperature and 10−3 for the critical volume fraction. Diblock chains are found to have lower critical temperatures and volume fractions relative to the corresponding homopolymers. The addition of solvophilic blocks of increasing length to a fixed-length solvophobic segment results in a decrease of both the critical temperature and the critical volume fraction, with an eventual slow asymptotic approach to the long-chain limiting behavior. Moving a single solvophobic or solvophilic bead along a chain leads to a minimum or maximum in the critical temperature, with no change in the critical volume fraction. Chains of identical length and composition have a significant spread in their critical properties, depending on their precise sequence. The present study has implications for understanding biomolecular phase separation and for developing design rules for synthetic polymers with specific phase separation properties. It also provides data potentially useful for the further development of theoretical models for polymer and surfactant phase behavior.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2011750
- PAR ID:
- 10585817
- Publisher / Repository:
- J. Chemical Physics
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Journal of Chemical Physics
- Volume:
- 160
- Issue:
- 23
- ISSN:
- 0021-9606
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0215700
