Origins of the suppression of fibril formation in grafted methylcellulose solutions

Vaidyanathan Sethuraman, Kevin D. Dorfman

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Abstract

We utilize coarse-grained molecular-dynamics simulations to probe the influence of grafting on the conformation and aggregation of methylcellulose chains in water, inspired by the recent experiments on solutions of methylcellulose (MC) chains grafted with polyethylene glycol (PEG) that showed inhibition of methylcellulose fibril formation at high PEG-grafting densities [S. Morozova, Macromolecules (Washington, DC, U. S.) 51, 9413 (2018)MAMOBX0024-929710.1021/acs.macromol.8b01899]. These simulations reveal three features of the grafted system that should frustrate fibril assembly. First, multichain simulations indicate that the distance between the centers of mass of the chains increases at high grafting densities, suggesting that the ability to form collapsed structures is disrupted. Second, single-chain simulations using grafted MC show that the formation of the precursor toroidal structure responsible for fibril formation is hampered at high grafting densities. Third, the frequency spectrum of conformational fluctuations indicates that low-frequency modes dominate at higher grafting densities, suggesting a larger decorrelation time in conformational fluctuations. Together, these results provide a macromolecular basis for the suppression in fibril formation in grafted methylcellulose solutions for grafting densities exceeding approximately 10%.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number085601
JournalPhysical Review Materials
Volume4
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We acknowledge fruitful discussion with Prof. T. P. Lodge (University of Minnesota) and Prof. S. Morozova (Case Western Reserve University). This work was supported primarily by the National Science Foundation through the University of Minnesota Materials Science Research and Engineering Center under Awards No. DMR-1420013 and No. DMR-2011401. The authors acknowledge the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) at the University of Minnesota for providing resources that contributed to the research results reported within this paper.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Physical Society.

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