Nonlinear screening and gas-liquid separation in suspensions of charged colloids
arXiv:cond-mat/0611290 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.258302
Abstract
We calculate phase diagrams of charged colloidal spheres (valency and radius ) in a 1:1 electrolyte from multi-centered nonlinear Poisson-Boltzmann theory. Our theory takes into account charge-renormalization of the colloidal interactions and volume terms due to many-body effects. For valencies as small as Z=1 and as large as we find a gas--liquid spinodal instability in the colloid-salt phase diagram provided $Z\lB/a\gtrsim24\pm1$, where $\lB$ is the Bjerrum length.
accepted by Phys. Rev. Lett