Thermodynamics of Charged Nanoparticle Adsorption on Charge-Neutral Membranes: A Simulation Study

Author: Salome Chinchaladze
Keywords: Nanoparticle, Membrane, Entropy, electrostatic interaction
Annotation:

The research describes the interaction between the neutral membrane and different types of nanoparticles.Three kinds of nanoparticles are modeled with different surface charge densities: the uncharged one, the positively charged one, and the negatively charged one. It turned out that the electrostatic attraction improves the adhesion of a charged nanoparticle to the membrane. With the increase of electrostatic energy, a charged NP can be almost fully wrapped by the membrane. Some thermodynamic quantities such as free energy, entropy, and enthalpy are also obtained to explain the process of NPs binding.