Chapter 14 Computational Models for Electrified Interfaces

In the past, the membrane bilayer and its surface interactions have been pictured as an electrical equivalent circuit with varying properties such as channel type, Nernst potentials describing reversal potentials, and the membrane capacitance (e.g. Hille, 1992). To better understand the nature of an electrified potential of a bilayer, computational models of membranes cannot always be treated as a continuum solvent defined just by bulk properties due to the heterogeneity and specific solvent effects of the membrane surface. Significant advances in computational power have made it more exacting and appealing to model a membrane system explicitly in order to capture the heterogeneity of the bilayer and important solvent effects.