Influence of confinement on conformational entropy of a polymer chain and structure of polymer-nanoparticles complexes

Behaviour of a polymer chain in the presence of fixed obstacles has been studied by the static Monte Carlo simulations. A modified self-avoiding walk on a cubic lattice has been used to model the polymer in an athermal solution. The statistical Counting method has been applied to calculate the conformational entropy of the chain, assumed to be grafted to an obstacle. Different chain lengths and obstacle curvatures have been examined. Some implications of the confinement induced changes in the conformational entropy of polymer chains to the structure of complexes composed of long polymer chains and nanoparticles are discussed. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.