Structural changes and chain conformation of hydrophobic polyelectrolytes

A series of hydrophobic sodium poly(styrene-co-styrene sulfonate)'s of various charge fractions was studied by means of two combined techniques, static light scattering and small-angle X-rays scattering. The existence of structural changes as a function of the charge content was evidenced in the full scattering spectrum. By fitting the, experimental data with some known models, we were able to show that these hydrophobic polyelectrolytes have a Gaussian shape at large scales. Moreover, the correlation between characteristic lengths of different scales suggests that the small angle upturn of the most hydrophobic polyelectrolyte's could be related to the conformation of the chains.