Importance of dielectric friction effect on polyelectrolytes conductivity

Abstract All current theories concerning the conductivity of polyelectrolytes ignore the dielectric friction effect undergone by the polyion chains according to their conformation. Indeed, Manning’s theory is limited to the case of stretched chains and only takes into account hydrodynamic, electrophoretic and ionic frictions; while scaling approach theories take into account the formation of different types of blobs within the chain but are restricted to hydrodynamic and electrophoretic frictions. In this work, we present a different approach that explains the variation of the equivalent conductivity of polyions having coiled or almost or completely stretched conformations and that takes into account the four frictions. In addition, the introduction of the dielectric friction effect allowed us to interpret the dependency of the equivalent conductivity of a polyion λ P,X on the nature of its counterions X. A likely correlation between this effect and Hofmeister’s is discussed.