This document may be downloaded, read, stored and printed for your own use within the limits of § 53 UrhG but it may not be distributed via the internet or passed on to external parties.Dieses Dokument darf im Rahmen von § 53 UrhG zum eigenen Gebrauch kostenfrei heruntergeladen, gelesen, gespeichert und ausgedruckt, aber nicht im Internet bereitgestellt oder an Außenstehende weitergegeben werden.Celora, Giulia L.Hennessy, Matthew G.Münch, AndreasWaters, Sarah L.Wagner, Barbara2022-06-302022-06-302020https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/9381https://doi.org/10.34657/8419The collapse of a polyelectrolyte gel in a (monovalent) salt solution is analysed using a new model that includes interfacial gradient energy to account for phase separation in the gel, finite elasticity and multicomponent transport. We carry out a linear stability analysis to determine the stable and unstable spatially homogeneous equilibrium states and how they phase separate into localized regions that eventually coarsen to a new stable state. We then investigate the problem of a collapsing gel as a response to increasing the salt concentration in the bath. A phase space analysis reveals that the collapse is obtained by a front moving through the gel that eventually ends in a new stable equilibrium. For some parameter ranges, these two routes to gel shrinking occur together.eng510Polyelectrolyte gelphase separationcollapseReport28 S.