Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, Vol.209, No.1, 240-246, 1999
Electrophoretic mobility of a concentrated suspension of spherical particles
The electrophoretic behavior of concentrated spherical colloidal particles is analyzed theoretically for all levels of scaled surface potential phi(a), taking the effect of double-layer polarization (DLP) into account. The result of numerical simulation reveals that for a very small kappa a (<0.01), kappa and a being, respectively, the reciprocal Debye length and the particle radius, or a very large kappa a (>100), using a linearized Poisson-Boltzmann equation (PBE) and neglecting the effect of DLP is reasonable; for an intermediate kappa a, appreciable deviation may result. The deviation is negative if kappa a is small, and positive if kappa a is large. The mobility against kappa a curve may have a local minimum and a local maximum If phi(a) is low, the mobility increases with the porosity of the system under consideration, and for a fixed porosity, the mobility increases with kappa a. If phi(a) is high and kappa a is small, the effect of phi(a) (i.e., solving a nonlinear PBE) on the mobility of a particle is more significant than that of double-layer polarization, and the reverse is true if kappa a is large. For an intermediate kappa a, the effect of DLP is more significant than that of phi(a) when the porosity is high, and the reverse is true if it is low,
Keywords:COLLOIDAL PARTICLES