Perhaps the most remarkable observation one can make about colloidal suspensions is that they exist at all. Particles dispersed in a fluid medium have a natural tendency to aggregate under the influence of van der Waals attraction. Yet the fortunes of a great many natural and industrial processes require colloidal particles to remain dispersed or at least to aggregate at a controlled rate. The existence of colloidal suspensions as varied as milk, inks, and metallic sols attests to the efficacy of a variety of stabilizing mechanisms. As early as 1809, Russel realized that many naturally occurring colloidal particles are charged. By the end of the century, Schultz and Hardy demonstrated that the resulting electro-static repulsions were strong enough to stabilize their suspensions against flocculating. This mechanism—arguably the best understood—continues to yield new surprises despite more than a century of analysis. The most recent burst of activity has been driven by the development of new and quite general techniques for measuring colloidal and macromolecular interactions. Its counterintuitive result—that like-charged particles some-times attract each other—may have ramifications in areas as diverse as protein crystallization, self-assembly of nano-structures, and the stabilization of industrial suspensions. This article touches briefly on the well-established theory of electrostatic stabilization in colloidal suspensions. The emphasis here is on the approximations that have provided the community with an analytical theory at the expense of overlooking recently discovered effects.
