title: Electrophoretic mobility reversal of polyampholytes induced by strong electric fields or confinement.
abstract: We investigate the mobility of polyampholytes consisting of both negatively and positively charged sections. The simulations are carried out using molecular dynamics simulations with electrohydrodynamical effects taken into account via a simple coupling scheme to a lattice-Boltzmann fluid. Our results show a previously predicted mobility reversal of the polyampholytes as the applied electric field is increased due to stretching of the polyampholytes. Further, we show that a similar mobility reversal can be induced due to confinement between parallel plates. At high electric field strengths, the polyampholytes' electrophoretic mobility is a non-monotonic function of the distance between the plates. These results help to clarify the role of deformation and confinement on the electrophoretic mobility of polyampholytes.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Computational Physics, Universität Stuttgart, Allmandring 3, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: Owen A
authors.initials: OA
authors.lastname: Hickey
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Holm
mesh_terms: D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D024202:Electrophoretic Mobility Shift Assay; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers