0000000000266236

AUTHOR

Apratim Chatterji

Electrophoretic properties of charged colloidal suspensions: Application of a hybrid MD/LB method

Abstract Electrophoretic properties of charged colloidal suspensions are investigated using a hybrid simulation method. In this method, the colloidal particles are propagated via Newton’s equations of motion using molecular dynamics (MD), while they are coupled to a structureless solvent that is modelled by the Lattice-Boltzmann (LB) method.

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Nonlinear effects in charge stabilized colloidal suspensions

Molecular Dynamics simulations are used to study the effective interactions in charged stabilized colloidal suspensions. For not too high macroion charges and sufficiently large screening, the concept of the potential of mean force is known to work well. In the present work, we focus on highly charged macroions in the limit of low salt concentrations. Within this regime, nonlinear corrections to the celebrated DLVO theory [B. Derjaguin and L. Landau, Acta Physicochem. USSR {\bf 14}, 633 (1941); E.J.W. Verwey and J.T.G. Overbeck, {\em Theory of the Stability of Lyotropic Colloids} (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1948)] have to be considered. For non--bulklike systems, such as isolated pairs or triples…

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Combining Molecular Dynamics with Lattice-Boltzmann: A Hybrid Method for the Simulation of (Charged) Colloidal Systems

We present a hybrid method for the simulation of colloidal systems, that combines molecular dynamics (MD) with the Lattice-Boltzmann (LB) scheme. The LB method is used as a model for the solvent in order to take into account the hydrodynamic mass and momentum transport through the solvent. The colloidal particles are propagated via MD and they are coupled to the LB fluid by viscous forces. With respect to the LB fluid, the colloids are represented by uniformly distributed points on a sphere. Each such point (with a velocity V(r) at any off-lattice position r is interacting with the neighboring eight LB nodes by a frictional force F=\xi_0(V(r)-u(r)) with \xi_0 being a friction force and u(r)…

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Qualitative characterisation of effective interactions of charged spheres on different levels of organisation using Alexander’s renormalised charge as reference

Abstract Effective interactions are conveniently determined from experimental or numerical data by fitting a Debye–Huckel potential with an effective charge Z ∗ and an effective electrolyte concentration c ∗ as free parameters. In this contribution we numerically solved the Poisson–Boltzmann equation to obtain the so-called renormalised charge Z PBC ∗ . For sufficiently large bare charge Z one finds a saturation of Z ∗ which scales as Z ∗ = A a / λ B , where a is the particle radius, λ B the Bjerrum length and A a proportionality factor of order (8–10). The saturation value increases with increased total micro-ion concentration and shows a shallow minimum as a function of packing fraction. …

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