Structure and rheology of polyelectrolytes in length-mismatched coacervates

Polyelectrolyte complexes are highly tunable materials that span from low-viscosity liquids (coacervates) to high-modulus solids with high water content, making them attractive as surface coating, membrane purification and bioadhesive materials. However, most of their properties and their effects with salt, pH, polymer ratio and temperature have only been qualitatively described. Here, we present an investigation of the structure and chain conformations, and rheological properties of polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) coacervates comprising biomimetic model polyelectrolytes with mismatched lengths. This model system allows the chain length (6 – 800-mer), side-chain functionality and chirality (L, D) to be tuned while keeping the backbone chemistry constant, thus enabling a systematic investigation of polyelectrolyte chain conformation in the liquid coacervate phase.