A novel statistical model for the cooperative binding of monomeric ligands to
a linear lattice is developed to study the interaction of ionic surfactant
molecules with flexible polyion chain in dilute solution. Electrostatic binding
of a ligand to a site on the polyion and hydrophobic associations between the
neighboring bound ligands are assumed to be stochastic processes. Ligand
association separated by several lattice points within defined width is
introduced for the flexible polyion. Model calculations by the Monte Carlo
method are carried out to investigate the binding behavior. The hypothesis on
the ligand association and its width on the chain are of importance in
determining critical aggregation concentration and binding isotherm. The
results are reasonable for the interpretations of several surfactant-flexible
polyion binding experiments. The implications of the approach are presented and
discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure
