Effect of Adsorbing and Nonadsorbing Polymer on the Interaction Between Colloidal Particles

Abstract

In this paper it is described how a recent theoretical model can be applied to a system of two colloidal particles in the presence of adsorbing and nonadsorbing polymer. It turns out that in the case of adsorption the most suitable boundary condition is restricted equilibrium, in which a constant amount of polymer is in local equilibrium inside the gap between two particles. At a low polymer dose the formation of bridges gives rise to bridging flocculation, at higher amounts of polymer steric stabilization occurs due to the mutual repulsion of two extended polymer layers. If the polymer does not adsorb on the particles, full equilibrium applies in which the chemical potentials of solvent and polymer in the gap are the same as in the equilibrium bulk solution, The depletion of polymer near the surface may lead to depletion flocculation in not too concentrated polymer solutions. In very concentrated systems the thickness of the depletion zone is relatively small, and the attraction between the particles becomes too weak to overcome the particle entropy, Then the system is restabilized

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