Dear Colleagues,
One of our own, Matthias Ballauff, has distinguished himself with a “Perspective” article in Science magazine for the 29 June issue [URL attached]. It’s a commentary on a research paper by Yu et al. on the control of friction between two plates, both covered by polyelectrolyte. The control is effected by varying concentration and valence of counterions. The research may have far-reaching, practical applications, including the realm of polymer colloids.
I presume the editors sought out Matthias as a renowned expert in this field.
Congratulations to Matthias!
Bob Fitch
Go to the article here: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6396/1399
……and here’s the summary:
“Skeletal joints must provide lubrication under considerable load. Lubrication between two sliding surfaces in aqueous environments can be greatly enhanced by polyelectrolyte brushes (1): Long macromolecular chains that bear charges at each repeating unit are grafted densely to a planar or curved surface. In the so-called osmotic limit (low salt concentrations), a large fraction of the counterions are confined within the brush layer, thus creating an enormous osmotic pressure (see the figure, left). Surface forces apparatus (SFA) (2) studies revealed a marked repulsion between such surfaces (3), and Klein and co-workers (4) showed that this effect very efficiently lubricates polyelectrolyte brush interfaces. It is now generally believed that lubrication in many biological systems works according to the same principle. On page 1434 of this issue, Yu et al. (5) add a twist to this story by studying the same problem in a SFA and finding that traces of di- and trivalent ions can increase the frictional force between two polyelectrolyte brush layers, dramatically so for Y+3 ions.”