Issue 6, 2012

How properties of interacting depletant particles control aggregation of hard-sphere colloids

Abstract

We present a numerical study of the effective potential Veff between two hard-sphere colloids dispersed in an implicit solvent in the presence of interacting depletant particles, for several values of temperature and depletant density, approaching the depletant gas-liquid critical point. We investigate the stability of a system of particles interacting via the pair-wise additive Veff to evaluate the locus of colloidal aggregation in the phase-diagram of the depletant, and its dependence on the colloids size. We assess how the excluded volume depletion forces are modified by depletant attraction and discuss under which conditions critical fluctuations of the depletant, in the form of critical Casimir forces, can be used to effectively manipulate colloidal aggregation.

Graphical abstract: How properties of interacting depletant particles control aggregation of hard-sphere colloids

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
16 Aug 2011
Accepted
08 Nov 2011
First published
23 Dec 2011

Soft Matter, 2012,8, 1991-1996

How properties of interacting depletant particles control aggregation of hard-sphere colloids

N. Gnan, E. Zaccarelli, P. Tartaglia and F. Sciortino, Soft Matter, 2012, 8, 1991 DOI: 10.1039/C1SM06566A

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