The Poisson–Boltzmann equation can be used to calculate the electrostatic potential field of a molecule surrounded by a solvent containing mobile ions. The Poisson–Boltzmann equation is a non‐linear partial differential equation. Finite‐difference methods of solving this equation have been restricted to the linearized form of the equation or a finite number of non‐linear terms. Here we introduce a method based on a variational formulation of the electrostatic potential and standard multi‐dimensional maximization methods that can be used to solve the full non‐linear equation.
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Luty et al. (1992) studied this question.