Paper detail

Importance of Varying Permittivity on the Conductivity of Polyelectrolyte Solutions

Dissolved ions can alter the local permittivity of water, nevertheless most theories and simulations ignore this fact. We present a novel algorithm for treating spatial and temporal variations in the permittivity and use it to measure the equivalent conductivity of a salt-free polyelectrolyte solution. Our new approach quantitatively reproduces experimental results unlike simulations with a constant permittivity that even qualitatively fail to describe the data. We can relate this success to a change in the ion distribution close to the polymer due to the built-up of a permittivity gradient.