RHEOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF POLYELECTROLYTE COACERVATES CONTAINING GOLD NANOPARTICLES.

The mixture of two oppositely charged macromolecules in aqueous
solution results in an associative phase separation, yielding a coacervate
continuum system, also referred to as PEC (Polyelectrolyte Complex),
whose mechanical properties rely on the dynamics of the chain bonds. In
this work, we have investigated how the incorporation of gold
nanoparticles affects the rheological behavior of polyelectrolyte systems
composed of the polymers: poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and
poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDADMAC). Moreover, we
have explored the effect of nanoparticle concentration on the resulting
coacervate by employing varying amounts of spherical gold nanoparticles
synthetized through the Turkevich method and surface-modified with
PAA. Furthermore, we aim to study the effect of the particle aspect-ratio
role through the incorporation of gold nanorods prepared by seed-mediated
growth approaches. Overall, we propose that these colloidal particles
might act as crosslinkers, hindering the reptation of polymer chains;
monitored by rheology measurements in the linear and non-linear
viscoelastic regimes.