G. Lunabarcenas et al., MONTE-CARLO SIMULATION OF POLYMER-CHAIN COLLAPSE IN ATHERMAL SOLVENTS, The Journal of chemical physics, 104(24), 1996, pp. 9971-9973
By computer simulation, Dijkstra et al. [M. Dijkstra, D. Frenkel, and
J. P. Hansen, J. Chem. Phys. 101, 3179 (1994)] reported the first entr
opy-driven polymer chain collapse in an athermal solvent. To gain a be
tter understanding of chain collapse physics in the absence of attract
ive interactions, we performed on-lattice NVT Monte Carlo simulations
on a single polymer chain immersed in a hard-core solvent of variable
size, shape, and density. In general, solvent quality decreases with i
ncreasing solvent density and incipient chain collapse occurs at a uni
que critical density for a given solvent size and shape. The critical
density is smaller for large solvent molecules, but solvent shape also
plays a role. Unfavorable solvent-chain excluded volume (EV) interact
ions drive the collapse transition. The EV interaction is reduced and
the solvent entropy increases when the chain collapses, but there is a
n accompanying and unfavorable loss of chain conformational entropy. A
t the transition density these opposing entropy changes are comparable
in magnitude. In the special and important case where the EV interact
ion is chain conformation independent, no collapse is observed at any
solvent density. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.