ИСТИНА

The effect of two monovalent salts differing in the anions (sodium acetate and sodium chloride) on the aggregation of fully protonated hydrophobically modified chitosan in dilute aqueous solutions was studied by light scattering. It was demonstrated that the both salts promote the aggregation of similarly charged macromolecules. At the same time, strong ion specificity is observed: acetate ions induce the growth of the aggregates, whereas chloride ions increase the fraction of aggregated chains. The behavior observed was attributed to different mechanisms of interactions of these ions with HM chitosan.