Study of the water conformation around hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts of styrene-maleic anhydride

The influence of shells of water on the conformation of the monomer of poly(styrene-maleic anhydride) was studied using explicit solvent models. The molecule possesses a hydrophobic and a hydrophilic group which allows the determination of the influence of the water orientation around both the hydrophilic and hydrophobic groups. The hydrophilic interactions were found to be direct and long range, whereas the hydrophobic interactions were found to be indirect and short range. Because the hydrophobic interactions are indirect, they can be repetitively applied and optimised to large structures such as polymers. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.