Title: polyelectrolyte
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - polyelectrolyte
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.P04728
Status: current

Definition
Polymer composed of macromolecules in which a substantial portion of the constitutional units contains ionic or ionizable groups, or both.

Notes
1) The terms polyelectrolyte, polymer electrolyte, and polymeric electrolyte should not be confused with the term solid polymer electrolyte.
2) Polyelectrolytes can be either synthetic or natural. nucleic acids, proteins, teichoic acids, some polypeptides, and some polysaccharides are examples of natural polyelectrolytes.

Related Terms
- nucleic acids: https://dev.goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/N04245
- polypeptides: https://dev.goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04749
- polysaccharides: https://dev.goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04752
- proteins: https://dev.goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04898
- solid polymer electrolyte: https://dev.goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/ST07227

Source
- PAC, 2006, 78, 2067. 'Terminology of polymers containing ionizable or ionic groups and of polymers containing ions (IUPAC Recommendations 2006)' on page 2072 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac200678112067)

Other Outputs
- html: https://dev.goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04728/html
- json: https://dev.goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04728/json
- xml: https://dev.goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04728/xml

Citation: Citation: 'polyelectrolyte' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.P04728
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Accessed: 2026-02-15T10:30:40+00:00