Elucidating the Origin of the Attractive Force among Hydrophilic Macroions

Coarse-grained simulation approach is applied to provide a general understanding of various soluble, hydrophilic macroionic solutions, especially the strong attractions among the like-charged soluble macroions and the consequent spontaneous, reversible formation of blackberry structures with tunable sizes. This model captures essential molecular details of the macroions and their interactions in polar solvents. Results using this model provide consistent conclusions to the experimental observations, from the nature of the attractive force among macroions (counterion-mediated attraction), to the blackberry formation mechanism. The conclusions can be applied to various macroionic solutions from inorganic molecular clusters to dendrimers and biomacromolecules.