Gelation in strongly charged polyelectrolytes

Crosslinking of strongly charged chains via multivalent ions of valence z was treated within the Flory approach, which accounts only for the treelike architecture of the clusters formed. Density–density correlations due to the electrostatic nature of the system were considered with a modified random‐phase approximation. At a certain concentration of multivalent ions that play the role of effective stickers among z monomers, an infinitely large polymer network was formed. We analyzed the gelation driven by the formation of locally neutral clusters induced by divalent and trivalent ions.