Hydrophobic polyelectrolytes

We present a scaling model of hydrophobic polyelectrolytes. In dilute salt-free solutions these polymers have a necklacelike shape with compact beads joined by narrow strings. This necklacelike structure manifests itself in the unique scaling laws in semidilute regime for the concentration range where the correlation length xi of a solution is on the order of the string length between two neighboring beads. In this regime the correlation length xi decreases with polymer concentration c as xi similar to c(-1/3), viscosity is concentration independent, and self-diffusion coefficient D increases with concentration D similar to c(1/3) in both unentangled and entangled solutions. The effects of added salt on the properties of hydrophobic polyelectrolyte solutions are also discussed.