Environmental Engineering Reference
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Fig. 7 Neutral and ionised
structures of bio-polymer
PAA ISA 23. a Neutral. b pH
<
(a)
pKa 1 . c pKa 1
<
pH
<
pKa 2 . d pKa 2
<
pH
<
pKa 3
(b)
(c)
(d)
The molecular weight of ISA23 is 16,500 g/mol and it has three pKa 's: pKa 1 =
2
3. For this reason, the molecule could be in three
different ionisation forms as illustrated in Fig. 7 b-d.
Electrostatic DPD simulations have been performed (Mayoral and Nahmad-Achar
to be published ) in order to study the radius of gyration of this molecule and com-
pare with experimental data reported. The mapping used is shown in Fig. 8 .Itwas
established by taking into account the molar volume of each segment or monomeric
unit, and considering the volume of each DPD bead as 3 V
.
1, pKa 2 =
7
.
5 and pKa 3 =
3
.
30 Å 3
, where V
w =
is
w
the molar volume of one water molecule.
ISA23 could be considered as a weak poly-acid and the pH could be modelled
considering its ionisation degree over the polymeric structure. Partial charges are
introduced over the molecule considering that the B-DPD bead (see Fig. 8 ) could
be neutral or have a charge of 1 depending on the pH in the solution. The C-DPD
beads could be neutral or have a positive charge of 1 + or 2 + depending also on the
pH of the medium according to the acid-base equilibrium given by
 
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