Copolymers with saturating bonds: Computer simulation

The conformational properties of separate AB-copolymer molecules in which saturating bonds could be formed between the A and B units were studied by computer simulation techniques. Copolymer molecules with different primary sequences (random, diblock, and random-complementary) of the A and B units were considered. The number of saturated AB bonds formed increased as the temperature decreased. For a random AB sequence, we observed the usual transition from the coil to globular conformation, and for diblocks and random-complementary sequences, the final conformation was a "pin" consisting of parallel pairs of AB bonds.