Field-driven dynamical demixing of binary mixtures

Abstract

We consider mixtures of two species of spherical colloidal particles that differ in their hydrodynamic radii, but are otherwise identical, in the presence of an external field. Since the particle-particle and particle-field interactions are the same for both species, they are completely mixed in the thermodynamic limit in the presence of any static field. Here, we combine Brownian Dynamics and Dynamic Density Functional theory of fluids to show that for sufficiently large differences in the hydrodynamic radius of the particles (and corresponding differences in their electrophoretic mobilities) dynamical demixing is observed. These demixed states are transient but, under certain conditions, packing effects compromise the relaxation towards the thermodynamic states and the lifetime of the demixed phases increases significantly.

References in corpus (4)

• Active Particles in Complex and Crowded Environments
• Kinetic control of the coverage of oil droplets by DNA-functionalised colloids
• Demixing of active particles in the presence of external fields
• Nonequilibrium self-organization of colloidal particles on substrates: adsorption, relaxation, and annealing

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Classical dynamical density functional theory: from fundamentals to applications
• Dynamical demixing of a binary mixture under sedimentation