Phase Behaviour of Colloidal Binary Hard Sphere Mixtures

Abstract

In the previous chapters we considered the effect of added nonadsorbing polymers on the phase behaviour (Chap. 4) and interface (Chap. 5) appearing in suspensions of spherical colloids. The depletion effect is also operational in other types of mixtures, such as binary mixtures composed of large and small (hard) spheres where two big spheres in a sea of small spheres are brought together (Fig. 6.1). As the big spheres get close, the smaller spheres can no longer enter the gap between the big ones. The small particles then push the big spheres together.