Abstract
Polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers and their charged state in deuterium oxide have been investigated with diffusion NMR and small angle neutron scattering (SANS) techniques. NMR measurement suggests that, upon increasing the molecular protonation by progressive acidification of solutions, significant variation of hydrodynamic radius, calculated by the Stokes-Einstein relation with given surface condition, is observed upon increasing the molecular protonation. However, comparative SANS experiment indicates little dependence of dendrimer global size, in terms of radius of gyration, on molecular protonation. This observed inconsistence indicates the necessity of incorporating the effect of molecular interface modification by dressed counterion, when dynamical measurements are used for determination the structural characteristics of ionic soft colloids even in a dilute enough suspension.
