Screening properties of four mesoscale smoothed charge models, with application to dissipative particle dynamics

DPD simulations of anionic surfactant micelles: a critical role for polarisable water models

We investigate the effects of polarisable water models in dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations, focussing on the influence these models have on the aggregation behaviour of sodium dodecyl sulfate solutions. Studies in the literature commonly report that DPD approaches underpredict the micellar aggregation number of ionic surfactants compared to experimental values. One of the proposed reasons for this discrepancy is that existing water models are insufficient to accurately model micellar solutions, as they fail to account for structural changes in water close to micellar surfaces. We show that polarisable DPD water models lead to more realistic counterion behaviour in micellar solutions, including the degree of counterion disassociation. These water models can also accurately reproduce changes in the dielectric constant of surfactant solutions as a function of concentration. We find evidence that polarisable water leads to the formation of more stable micelles at higher aggregation numbers. However, we also show that the choice of water model is not responsible for the underestimated aggregation numbers observed in DPD simulations. This finding addresses a key question in the literature surrounding the importance of water models in DPD simulations of ionic micellar solutions.

Transport Properties of Aqueous Methane Solutions and Blocking Behavior of Intelligent-Responsive Temporary Plugging Agent in a Switchable Nano-channel: A Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation Study

Intelligent-responsive temporary plugging agents (TPAs) have great potential in the field of oil and gas resource extraction due to their self-adaptability to the environment. However, the transport mechanism of oil and gas molecules, such as aqueous methane solution in intelligent-responsive TPA-modified nano-channels and the blocking behavior of TPA, have not been verified yet. In this work, dissipative particle dynamics simulations (DPD) are conducted to investigate the velocity distribution and the force characteristics of aqueous methane solutions under different driving velocities, as well as the blocking effect of TPA to the flow of solution. Simulation results indicate that aqueous methane solution primarily concentrates in the uncovered area of the TPA and diffuses into the TPA-covered area when the nano-channel is closed. The velocity distribution of the flowing solution in the open nano-channel follows a subparabolic pattern. Methane molecules in the closed nano-channel show sharp oscillations in velocity and force profiles, which can be mitigated by increasing the methane concentration. The designed TPA effectively blocks fluid flow but its head and tail are vulnerable to the shear forces from the fluid. This study enhances the understanding of the nanoflows in the wellbores during the extraction of oil and natural gas resources.

Many-body dissipative particle dynamics simulations of micellization of sodium alkyl sulfates

We present a study of micelle formation in alkyl sulfate surfactants using the simulation method of many-body dissipative particle dynamics (MDPD). We parametrise our model by tuning the intermolecular interactions in order to reproduce experimental values for the chemical potential and density at room temperature. Using this approach, we find that our model shows good agreement with experimental values for the critical micelle concentration (CMC). Furthermore, we show that our model can accurately predict CMC trends, which result from varying properties such as surfactant tail length and the salt concentration. We apply our model to investigate the effect of aggregation number on various micellar properties, such as the shape of individual micelles and the fraction of bound counterions. We show that micelles become aspherical at large aggregation numbers, in line with experimental predictions, and that longer tail surfactants are generally more spherical at all aggregation numbers compared to those which are shorter. We find excellent agreement between our simulations and experimental values for the degree of counterion binding, a factor that is crucial to accurately studying micellar shape, but one that is typically overlooked in the existing literature.

A Structure Independent Molecular Fragment Interfuse Model for Mesoscale Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation of Peptides

There is a need to develop robust computational models for mesoscale simulation of the structure of peptides over large length scales toward the discovery of novel peptides for medical applications to address the issues of peptide aggregation, enzymatic degradation, and short half-life. The primary objective was to predict the structure and conformation of peptides whose native structures are not known. This work presents a new model for computation of interaction parameters between the beads in coarse-grained dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulation that is properly calibrated for amino acids, supports compressibility requirement of water molecules, and accounts for subtle differences in the structure of amino acids and the charge in the side chain of charged amino acids. This new model is referred to as Structure Independent Molecular Fragment Interfuse Model, abbreviated as SIMFIM, because it accounts for specific interactions between different beads, which represent molecular fragments of the amino acids, in calculating nonbonded interaction parameters in the absence of knowing the actual peptide structure. The electrostatic interactions are incorporated in this model by using a normal distribution of charges around the center of the beads to prevent the collapse of oppositely charged soft beads. The uniquely parameterized DPD force field in the SIMFIM model is optimized for a given peptide with respect to the degree of coarse-grained graining for simulating the peptide over long times and length scales. The SIMFIM model was tested in this work using four peptides, namely, TrpZip2, Rubrivinodin, Lihuanodin, and IC3-CB1/Gai peptides, whose structures were sourced from the Protein Data Bank. The SIMFIM model predicted radius of gyration (Rg) values for the peptides closer to the actual structures as compared to the conventional model, and there was less deviation between the predicted and actual structures of the peptides.

Studying the Structure of Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate Solutions Using Dissipative Particle Dynamics

Sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES) is a common anionic surfactant used in a large number of personal care products. Commercial products typically contain a distribution in the number of ethoxy groups; despite this, there is limited existing work studying the effect of the ethoxy groups on the phase formation and structure. This is particularly important for the effect the structure has on the viscosity, an important consideration for commercial products. Dissipative particle dynamics is used to simulate the full phase diagram of SLES in water, including both micellar and lyotropic liquid crystal phases. Phase transitions occur at locations which are in good agreement with experimental data, and we find that these boundaries can shift as a result of varying the number of ethoxy groups. Varying the ethoxy groups has a significant effect on the micellar shape and crystalline spacing, with a reduction leading to more nonspherical micelles and decreased periodic spacing of the hexagonal and lamellar phases. Finally, while typical commercial products contain a distribution of ethoxy groups, computational work tends to focus on simulations containing a single chain length. We show that it is valid to use monodisperse simulations to infer behavior about solutions with a polydisperse chain length, based on its mean molecular length.

Changes in Ion Concentrations upon the Binding of Short Polyelectrolytes on Phospholipid Bilayers: Computer Study Addressing Interesting Physiological Consequences

This computer study was inspired by the experimental observation of Y. Qian et al. published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 2018 that the short positively charged β-peptide chains and their oligomeric analogues efficiently suppress severe medical problems caused by antimicrobial drug-resistant bacteria despite them not penetrating the bacterial membrane. Our coarse-grained molecular dynamics (dissipative particle dynamics) simulations confirm the tentative explanation of the authors of the experimental study that the potent antimicrobial activity is a result of the entropically driven release of divalent ions (mainly magnesium ions essential for the proper biological function of bacteria) into bulk solution upon the electrostatic binding of β-peptides to the bacterial membrane. The study shows that in solutions containing cations Na⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺, and anions Cl⁻, the divalent cations preferentially concentrate close to the membrane and neutralize the negative charge. Upon the addition of positively charged oligomer chains (models of β-peptides and their analogues), the oligomers electrostatically bind to the membrane replacing divalent ions, which are released into bulk solvent. Our simulations indicate that the entropy of small ions (which controls the behavior of synthetic polyelectrolyte solutions) plays an important role in this and also in other similar biologically important systems.

Electric-field-induced oscillations in ionic fluids: a unified formulation of modified Poisson-Nernst-Planck models and its relevance to correlation function analysis

We theoretically investigate an electric-field-driven system of charged spheres as a primitive model of concentrated electrolytes under an applied electric field. First, we provide a unified formulation for the stochastic charge and density dynamics of the electric-field-driven primitive model using the stochastic density functional theory (DFT). The stochastic DFT integrates the four frameworks (the equilibrium and dynamic DFTs, the liquid state theory and the field-theoretic approach), which allows us to justify in a unified manner various modifications previously made for the Poisson-Nernst-Planck model. Next, we consider stationary density-density and charge-charge correlation functions of the primitive model with a static electric field. We predict an electric-field-induced synchronization between emergences of density and charge oscillations. We are mainly concerned with the emergence of stripe states formed by segregation bands transverse to the external field, thereby demonstrating the following: (i) the electric-field-induced crossover occurs prior to the conventional Kirkwood crossover without an applied electric field, and (ii) the ion concentration dependence of the decay lengths at the onset of oscillations bears a similarity to the underscreening behavior found by recent simulation and theoretical studies on equilibrium electrolytes. Also, the 2D inverse Fourier transform of the correlation function illustrates the existence of stripe states beyond the electric-field-induced Kirkwood crossover.

Rhamnolipid Biosurfactants for Oil Recovery: Salt Effects on the Structural Properties Investigated by Mesoscale Simulations

Rhamnolipids (RLs) are biosurfactants produced by Pseudomonas. The biodegradability and the variety of their functionality make them suitable for environmental remediation and oil recovery. We use dissipative particle dynamics simulations to investigate the aggregation behaviors of ionic RL congeners with nonane in various operating conditions. Under zero-salinity conditions, all RL congeners studied here form small ellipsoidal clusters with detectable free surfactants. When salt ions are present, the electrostatic repulsion between the ionized heads is overcome, resulting in the formation of larger aggregates of unique structures. RLs with C10-alkyl tails tend to form elongated wormlike micelles, while RLs with C16-alkyl tails tend to form clusters in spherical symmetry, including vesicles. Di-rhamnolipids (dRLs) require stronger solvation than monorhamnolipids (mRLs) to form clusters, and the resulting size of micelles is decreased. The morphology of the mixed dRL/mRL/oil systems is controlled based on the type of the congeners and the oil contents. In addition, the divalent calcium ions are found to be influential to the structure of the micelles through different mechanisms. For 5 wt % salinity, the ionic RLs can form oil-swollen micelles up to a 1:1 surfactant-to-oil ratio, suggesting that ionic RLs are superb to act as cleaning agents for petroleum hydrocarbons in the marine area. These key findings may guide the design for RL-based washing techniques in enhanced oil recovery.

DPD Modelling of the Self- and Co-Assembly of Polymers and Polyelectrolytes in Aqueous Media: Impact on Polymer Science

This review article is addressed to a broad community of polymer scientists. We outline and analyse the fundamentals of the dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulation method from the point of view of polymer physics and review the articles on polymer systems published in approximately the last two decades, focusing on their impact on macromolecular science. Special attention is devoted to polymer and polyelectrolyte self- and co-assembly and self-organisation and to the problems connected with the implementation of explicit electrostatics in DPD numerical machinery. Critical analysis of the results of a number of successful DPD studies of complex polymer systems published recently documents the importance and suitability of this coarse-grained method for studying polymer systems.

Interactions of Crosslinked Polyacrylic Acid Polyelectrolyte Gels with Nonionic and Ionic Surfactants

The morphology and stability of surfactant-loaded polyelectrolyte gels are of great interest for a variety of personal care, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical products. However, the mechanisms of surfactant interactions with gel-forming polymers are poorly understood and experimentally challenging. The aim of this work is to explore in silico the specifics of surfactant absorption within polyelectrolyte gels drawing on the examples of typical non-ionic octaethylene glycol monooctyl ether (C₈E₈) and anionic sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) surfactants and polyacrylic acid modified with hydrophobic sidechains mimicking the practically important Carbopol polymer. Using the systematically parameterized coarse-grained dissipative particle dynamics models, we generate and characterize the equilibrium conformations and swelling of the polymer films in aqueous solutions with the surfactant concentrations varied up to the critical micelle concentration (cmc). We discover the striking difference in interactions of Carbopol-like polymers with nonionic and ionic surfactants under mildly acidic conditions. The sorption of C₈E₈ within the polymer film is found substantial. As the surfactant concentration increases, the polymer film swells and, close to cmc, becomes unstable due to the formation and growth of water pockets filled with surfactant micelles. Sorption of SDS at the same bulk concentrations is found much lower, with only about 1% of surfactant mass fraction achieved at cmc. As the SDS concentration increases further, a lamellae structure is formed within the film, which remains stable. Reduced swelling and higher stability indicate better prospects of using SDS-type surfactants with Carbopol-based gels in formulations for detergents and personal care products.

Multiscale simulations of polyzwitterions in aqueous bulk solutions and brush array configurations

Zwitterionic polymers are very promising candidates for antifouling materials that exhibit high chemical stability as compared to polyethylene glycol-based systems. A number of simulation and experimental studies have emerged over recent years for the investigation of sulfobetaine-based zwitterionic polymers. Investigating the structural and thermodynamic properties of such polymers requires access to broad time and length regimes, thus necessitating the development of multiscale simulation strategies. The present article advocates a mesoscopic dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) model capable of addressing a wide range of time and length scales. The mesoscopic force field was developed hand-in-hand with atomistic simulations based on the OPLS force field through a bottom-up parameterization procedure that matches the atomistically calculated strand-length, strand-angle and pair distribution functions. The DPD model is validated against atomistic simulations conducted in this work, and against relevant atomistic simulation studies, theoretical predictions and experimental correlations from the literature. Properties examined include the conformations of SPE polymers in dilute bulk aqueous solution, the density profile and thickness of brush arrays as functions of the grafting density and chain length. In addition, we compute the potential of mean force of an approaching hydrophilic or hydrophobic foulant via umbrella sampling as a function of its position relative to the poly-zwitterion-covered surface. The aforementioned observables lead to important insights regarding the conformational tendencies of grafted polyzwitterions and their antifouling properties.

Dissipative particle dynamics simulations in colloid and Interface science: a review

Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) is one of the most efficient mesoscale coarse-grained methodologies for modeling soft matter systems. Here, we comprehensively review the progress in theoretical formulations, parametrization strategies, and applications of DPD over the last two decades. DPD bridges the gap between the microscopic atomistic and macroscopic continuum length and time scales. Numerous efforts have been performed to improve the computational efficiency and to develop advanced versions and modifications of the original DPD framework. The progress in the parametrization techniques that can reproduce the engineering properties of experimental systems attracted a lot of interest from the industrial community longing to use DPD to characterize, help design and optimize the practical products. While there are still areas for improvements, DPD has been efficiently applied to numerous colloidal and interfacial phenomena involving phase separations, self-assembly, and transport in polymeric, surfactant, nanoparticle, and biomolecules systems.

Designing Highly Conductive Block Copolymer-Based Anion Exchange Membranes by Mesoscale Simulations

Hydroxide ion conductivity is a key aspect of anion exchange membranes and is mainly determined by the nanoscale membrane morphologies. Fundamental understanding of the structural and transport properties of membranes in terms of polymer architectures is crucial for future development of membrane-based applications. Using mesoscale simulations, this work predicts the mesostructure of the hydrated triblock copolymers; the designed polymers are composed of aromatic (polyphenylene oxide, PPO) or aliphatic (polystyrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene, SEBS) backbones, with cationic side chains being modified by hydrophobic or hydrophilic spacers. For PPO-based polymers, using octyl spacers creates a meshlike water network, yielding ion conductivity equal to 30.6 mS/cm at room temperature. For SEBS-based polymers, the nonmodified form is sufficient to produce ion-conducting pathways. Adding hydrophobic spacers further enhances the nanosegregation, and the membranes provide similar conductivity at a lower ion exchange capacity and water content. Adding hydrophilic spacers, however, has negative impacts on the ion transport. The side chains are in the stretched configurations, which sterically hinder the mobility of water and hydroxide ions. Such a resistance can be overcome by adapting multication side-chain designs, where large water channels are formed, yielding ion conductivity as high as 32.8 mS/cm.

SWINGER: a clustering algorithm for concurrent coupling of atomistic and supramolecular liquids

In this contribution, we review recent developments and applications of a dynamic clustering algorithm SWINGER tailored for the multiscale molecular simulations of biomolecular systems. The algorithm on-the-fly redistributes solvent molecules among supramolecular clusters. In particular, we focus on its applications in combination with the adaptive resolution scheme, which concurrently couples atomistic and coarse-grained molecular representations. We showcase the versatility of our multiscale approach on a few applications to biomolecular systems coupling atomistic and supramolecular water models such as the well-established MARTINI and dissipative particle dynamics models and provide an outlook for future work.

Computer study of the solubilization of polymer chains in polyelectrolyte complex cores of polymeric nanoparticles in aqueous media

The formation and structure of nanoparticles containing non-polar polymer chains solubilized in interpolyelectrolyte complex (IPC) cores and the partitioning of non-polar chains between bulk solvent and IPC cores were studied by coarse-grained computer simulations. The choice of the model system was inspired by experimental results published by van der Burgh et al. (Langmuir, 2004, 20, 1073-1084). The dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations reproduced the structure and basic features of co-assembled nanoparticles described by experimentalists well at the semi-quantitative coarse-grained level and revealed new properties of co-assembled particles. The simulated co-assemblies were used as reference systems for the solubilization studies. Their results show that non-polar polymers (electrically neutral and compatible with core-forming chains) solubilize easily in IPC cores. They intermix with polyelectrolyte blocks in cores and do not hinder, but, on the contrary, they slightly promote the electrostatic co-assembly.

Adaptive resolution simulations coupling atomistic water to dissipative particle dynamics

Multiscale methods are the most efficient way to address the interlinked spatiotemporal scales encountered in soft matter and molecular liquids. In the literature reported hybrid approaches span from quantum to atomistic, coarse-grained, and continuum length scales. In this article, we present the hybrid coupling of the molecular dynamics (MD) and dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) methods, bridging the micro- and mesoscopic descriptions. The interfacing is performed within the adaptive resolution scheme (AdResS), which is a linear momentum conserving coupling technique. Our methodology is hence suitable to simulate fluids on the micro/mesoscopic scale, where hydrodynamics plays an important role. The presented approach is showcased for water at ambient conditions. The supramolecular coupling is enabled by a recently developed clustering algorithm SWINGER that assembles, disassembles, and reassembles clusters as needed during the course of the simulation. This allows for a seamless coupling between standard atomistic MD and DPD models. The developed framework can be readily applied to various applications in the fields of materials and life sciences, e.g., simulations of phospholipids and polymer melts, or to study the red blood cells behavior in normal and disease states.

Computer Simulation Studies on the pH-Responsive Self-Assembly of Amphiphilic Carboxy-Terminated Polyester Dendrimers in Aqueous Solution

This paper investigates the pH-responsive self-assembly of an amphiphilic carboxyl-terminated polyester dendrimer, H20-COOH, in aqueous solution using the dissipative particle dynamics method. The electrostatic interactions were described by introducing the explicit interaction between the smeared charges on ionized polymer beads and the counterions. The results show that the self-assemblies could change from unimolecular micelles, microphase-separated small micelles, wormlike micelles, sheetlike micelles, and small vesicles to large vesicles with the decrease in the degree of ionization (α) of carboxylic acid groups. In addition, the detailed self-assembly mechanisms and the molecular packing models have also been disclosed for each self-assembly stages. Interestingly, the wormlike micelles are found to change from linear to branched when α decreases from 0.182 to 0.109. The current work might serve as a comprehensive understanding on the effect of carboxylic acid groups on the self-assembly behaviors of dendritic polymers.

Electrostatics in dissipative particle dynamics using Ewald sums with point charges

A proper treatment of electrostatic interactions is crucial for the accurate calculation of forces in computer simulations. Electrostatic interactions are typically modeled using Ewald-based methods, which have become some of the cornerstones upon which many other methods for the numerical computation of electrostatic interactions are based. However, their use with charge distributions rather than point charges requires the inclusion of ansatz for the solutions of the Poisson equation, since there is no exact solution known for smeared out charges. The interest in incorporating electrostatic interactions at the scales of length and time that are relevant for the study the physics of soft condensed matter has increased considerably. Using mesoscale simulation techniques, such as dissipative particle dynamics (DPD), allows us to reach longer time scales in numerical simulations, without abandoning the particulate description of the problem. The main problem with incorporating electrostatics into DPD simulations is that DPD particles are soft and those particles with opposite charge can form artificial clusters of ions. Here we show that one can incorporate the electrostatic interactions through Ewald sums with point charges in DPD if larger values of coarse-graining degree are used, where DPD is truly mesoscopic. Using point charges with larger excluded volume interactions, the artificial formation of ionic pairs with point charges can be avoided and one obtains correct predictions. We establish ranges of parameters useful for detecting boundaries where artificial formation of ionic pairs occurs. Lastly, using point charges we predict the scaling properties of polyelectrolytes in solvents of varying quality, and obtain predictions that are in agreement with calculations that use other methods and with recent experimental results.

Modeling Aggregation of Ionic Surfactants Using a Smeared Charge Approximation in Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulations

Using dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations, we explore the specifics of micellization in the solutions of anionic and cationic surfactants and their mixtures. Anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) are chosen as characteristic examples. Coarse-grained models of the surfactants are constructed and parameterized using a combination of atomistic molecular simulation and infinite dilution activity coefficient calibration. Electrostatic interactions of charged beads are treated using a smeared charge approximation: the surfactant heads and dissociated counterions are modeled as beads with charges distributed around the bead center in an implicit dielectric medium. The proposed models semiquantitatively describe self-assembly in solutions of SDS and CTAB at various surfactant concentrations and molarities of added electrolyte. In particular, the model predicts a decline in the free surfactant concentration with the increase of the total surfactant loading, as well as characteristic aggregation transitions in single-component surfactant solutions caused by the addition of salt. The calculated values of the critical micelle concentration reasonably agree with experimental observations. Modeling of catanionic SDS-CTAB mixtures show consecutive transitions to worm-like micelles and then to vesicles caused by the addition of CTAB to micellar solution of SDS.

The structure and interaction mechanism of a polyelectrolyte complex: a dissipative particle dynamics study

The mechanism of complex formation of two oppositely charged linear polyelectrolytes dispersed in a solvent is investigated by using dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulation. In the polyelectrolyte solution, the size of the cationic polyelectrolyte remains constant while the size of the anionic chain increases. We analyze the influence of the anionic polyelectrolyte size and salt effect (ionic strength) on the conformational changes of the chains during complex formation. The behavior of the radial distribution function, the end-to-end distance and the radius of gyration of each polyelectrolyte is examined. These results showed that the effectiveness of complex formation is strongly influenced by the process of counterion release from the polyelectrolyte chains. The radius of gyration of the complex is estimated using the Fox-Flory equation for a wormlike polymer in a theta solvent. The addition of salts in the medium accelerates the complex formation process, affecting its radius of gyration. Depending on the ratio of chain lengths a compact complex or a loosely bound elongated structure can be formed.

Self-assembly in Nafion membranes upon hydration: water mobility and adsorption isotherms

By means of dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, we explored geometrical, transport, and sorption properties of hydrated Nafion-type polyelectrolyte membranes. Composed of a perfluorinated backbone with sulfonate side chains, Nafion self-assembles upon hydration and segregates into interpenetrating hydrophilic and hydrophobic subphases. This segregated morphology determines the transport properties of Nafion membranes that are widely used as compartment separators in fuel cells and other electrochemical devices, as well as permselective diffusion barriers in protective fabrics. We introduced a coarse-grained model of Nafion, which accounts explicitly for polymer rigidity and electrostatic interactions between anionic side chains and hydrated metal cations. In a series of DPD simulations with increasing content of water, a classical percolation transition from a system of isolated water clusters to a 3D network of hydrophilic channels was observed. The hydrophilic subphase connectivity and water diffusion were studied by constructing digitized replicas of self-assembled morphologies and performing random walk simulations. A non-monotonic dependence of the tracer diffusivity on the water content was found. This unexpected behavior was explained by the formation of large and mostly isolated water domains detected at high water content and high equivalent polymer weight. Using MC simulations, we calculated the chemical potential of water in the hydrated polymer and constructed the water sorption isotherms, which extended to the oversaturated conditions. We determined that the maximum diffusivity and the onset of formation of large water domains corresponded to the saturation conditions at 100% humidity. The oversaturated membrane morphologies generated in the canonical ensemble DPD simulations correspond to the metastable and unstable states of Nafion membrane that are not realized in the experiments.