Multi-scale dynamics in polyelectrolyte gels
Polyelectrolyte gels are soft materials that consist of an electrically charged polymer network that is swollen with an ionic solution. The behaviour of a polyelectrolyte gel is set by an intricate interplay between thermodynamics, electrostatics, and nonlinear mechanics that takes place across length scales ranging from nanometers to millimeters. One of the most intriguing aspects of polyelecytolyte gels is that altering the salt content in the surrounding environment can trigger phase separation within the gel, a process that is linked to structure formation in biological cells. In this talk, I will present a thermodynamically consistent phase-field model of a polyelectrolyte gel. Using a combination of numerical simulations, nonlinear dynamics, and asymptotic analysis, several new modes of phase separation are revealed and explained. The talk will conclude with some of the challenges that must be overcome to model intracellular phase separation.