Understanding the Thermodynamics of the Binding of PAMAM Dendrimers to Graphene: A Combined Analytical and Simulation Study

Gosika, Mounika and Sen, Swati and Kundagrami, Arindam and Maiti, Prabal K (2019) Understanding the Thermodynamics of the Binding of PAMAM Dendrimers to Graphene: A Combined Analytical and Simulation Study. In: LANGMUIR, 35 (28). pp. 9219-9232.

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Abstract

We investigate the thermodynamics of the binding of a poly(amidoamine) dendrimer to an uncharged graphene sheet as a function of the pH level using umbrella sampling simulations and a mean-field theory for generations three and four. We find that the dendrimer strongly binds to the graphene sheet (0(100) kcal/mol) from our potential of mean force (PMF) calculations. In specific, we find that the dendrimer binds the most at neutral pH (similar to 7) and the least at low pH (similar to 4). We explain this nonmonotonic nature of the dendrimer's adsorption by studying the interactions contributing to the PMF, i.e., the dendrimer-graphene, dendrimer-water, and dendrimer-ion interactions. We also corroborate our PMF calculations with molecular mechanics generalized Born surface area analysis and free energies obtained from a mean-field theory of Flory-Huggins-Debye-Hiickel type Muthukumar, M., et al. J. Chem. Phys. 2010, 132, 084901], including electrostatic interactions. We find that the van der Waals interactions between the dendrimer and the graphene alone cannot capture the accurate trends in the binding free energies (BEs) as a function of pH. The solvent and the counterions present in the system are also found to have a major influence on these trends. We demonstrate that the dendrimer-graphene and dendrimer water interactions become favorable, whereas the dendrimer-ion interaction becomes unfavorable, as the dendrimer binds to graphene. These opposing effects lead to the observed nonmonotonicity in the BE trends. Our theoretical model also reproduces these trends in the subinteractions contributing to the PMF. To the best of our knowledge, this is a novel attempt where an equivalence between theory and simulations is made in the context of the dendrimer's adsorption.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	LANGMUIR
Publisher:	AMER CHEMICAL SOC
Additional Information:	copyright for this article belongs to AMER CHEMICAL SOC
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	19 Sep 2019 11:25
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2019 11:25
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/63492

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