Classical density functional approach to depletion interaction of Lennard-Jones binary mixtures

In this article, we apply classical density functional theory to investigate the characteristics of depletion interaction in Lennard-Jones (LJ) binary fluid mixtures. First of all, in order to confirm the validity of our adopted density functional formalism, we calculate the radial distribution functions with theoretical approach and compare them with results obtained by molecular dynamics simu- lation. Then this approach is applied to the case of two colloids immersed in LJ solvent systems. We investigate the variation of depletion interaction with respect to the distance of two colloids in LJ binary systems. We find that depletion interaction may be attractive or repulsive, mostly depending on the bulk density of solvent and the temperature of binary system. For high bulk densities, the repulsive barrier of depletion force is remarkable when the total excluded volume of colloids touches each other and reaches a maximum. The height of repulsive barrier is related to the parameters of LJ potential and bulk density. Moreover, depletion force may exhibit attractive wells if the bulk density of solvent is low. The attractive well tends to appear when the surface-surface distance of colloids is half of the size of polymer and deepen with temperature lowering in a fixed bulk density. In contrast with the hard-spheres system, no oscillation of depletion potential around zero is observed.

Spontaneous nucleation on flat surface by depletion force in colloidal suspension

Nucleation by sedimentation of colloidal particles on a flat surface is experimentally observed, and effect of attractive depletion force generated by polymers on nucleation is investigated. Sedimentation forms polycrystalline colloidal crystal on a flat surface, and above the threshold polymer concentration, ratio of the spontaneous nucleation increases, resulting in a decrease in the grain size, whereas dependence of the contact angle on the polymer concentration was not observed. We show that the interaction between particles and the flat surface mainly affects the spontaneous nucleation, not the interaction between the particles, and it is demonstrated that the nucleation process can be numerically reproduced using the rate equations.

Exploring the effects of approach velocity on depletion force and coalescence in oil-in-water emulsions

Presented here are ways of producing unstable emulsions and use these in optical tweezers studies to determine the effects of system parameters on droplet depletion force and coalescence time.

Interaction of Different Charged Polymers with Potassium Ions and Their Effect on the Yield Stress of Highly Concentrated Glass Bead Suspensions

The interaction of different charged polymers, namely anionic polycarboxylate superplasticizer (PCE) and neutral polyethylene glycol (PEG) with potassium ions, and their effect on the yield stress of highly concentrated glass bead suspension (GBS), were studied under different concentrations of potassium ions ([K+]). It was found that, compared to the neutral PEG, the negatively charged PCE can be adsorbed on glass beads (GB), and then decreases the yield stress of GBS. The increasing concentration of free polymer in the interstitial liquid phase with the increased polymer dosage leads to the higher yield stress of GBS, which may be caused by the higher depletion force. In addition, this effect is also related to the charge density of the polymer and the [K+] in the solution. Along with the increase in [K+], the yield stress of GBS increases significantly with the addition of PCE, but this cannot be observed with PEG, which indicates that potassium ions can interact with negatively charged PCE instead of the neutral PEG. At last, the interparticle forces between two single GB with adsorbed PCE in solutions containing [K+] and PCE were measured by colloidal probe atomic force microscopy to better understand the interaction of the charged polymer with counterions.