Simulation and theory of fluid demixing and interfacial tension of mixtures of colloids and non-ideal polymers

Abstract

An extension of the Asakura-Oosawa-Vrij model of hard sphere colloids and non-adsorbing polymers, that takes polymer non-ideality into account through a repulsive stepfunction pair potential between polymers, is studied with grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations and density functional theory. Simulation results validate previous theoretical findings for the shift of the bulk fluid demixing binodal upon increasing strength of polymer-polymer repulsion, promoting the tendency to mix. For increasing strength of the polymer-polymer repulsion, simulation and theory consistently predict the interfacial tension of the free colloidal liquid-gas interface to decrease significantly for fixed colloid density difference in the coexisting phases, and to increase for fixed polymer reservoir packing fraction.

arXiv comment10 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Phase behavior and structure of model colloid-polymer mixtures confined between two parallel planar walls
• Effect of excluded volume interactions on the interfacial properties of colloid-polymer mixtures
• A structural comparison of models of colloid-polymer mixtures
• Accurate description of bulk and interfacial properties in colloid-polymer mixtures
• Influence of polydispersity on the critical parameters of an effective potential model for asymmetric hard sphere mixtures
• Crowding of Polymer Coils and Demixing in Nanoparticle-Polymer Mixtures
• Radial distribution function of penetrable sphere fluids to second order in density
• Phase diagram of mixtures of colloids and polymers in the thermal crossover from good to $\theta$ solvent
• Fluid-fluid demixing curves for colloid-polymer mixtures in a random colloidal matrix