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 ξ of a solution is on the order of the string length between two neighboring beads. In this regime the correlation length ξ decreases with polymer concentration c as ξ ∼ c -1/3, viscosity is concentration independent, and self-diffusion coefficient D increases with concentration D ∼ c 1/3 in both unentangled and entangled solutions. The effects of added salt on the properties of hydrophobic polyelectrolyte solutions are also discussed.