Morphological Model for Colloidal Suspensions

Abstract

The phase behavior of colloidal particles embedded in a binary fluid is influenced by wetting layers surrounding each particle. The free energy of the fluid film depends on its morphology, i.e., on size, shape and connectivity. Under rather natural assumptions a general expression for the Hamiltonian can be given extending the model of hard spheres to partially penetrable shapes including energy contributions related to the volume, surface area, mean curvature, and Euler characteristic of the wetting layer. The complex spatial structure leads to multi-particle interactions of the colloidal particles. The dependence of the morphology of the wetting layer on temperature and density can be studied using Monte-Carlo simulations and perturbation theory. A fluid-fluid phase separation induced by the wetting layer is observed which is suppressed when only two-particle interactions are taken into account instead of the inherent many-particle interaction of the wetting layer.