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45.

Wall tensions of model colloid-polymer mixtures P. P. F. Wessels, M. Schmidt, and H. Löwen, J. Phys.: Condens. Matt. 16, L1 (2004). (Selected for Top Papers 2004, pdf by IOP.) Locate in [bare] [illustrated] list. Get [full paper] as pdf. Abstract. Using the Asakura-Oosawa-Vrij model for mixtures of hard sphere colloids and non-adsorbing polymer coils, an analytic formula for the interfacial free energy of the fluid mixture in contact with a hard wall is obtained within a scaled-particle treatment. The results compare well with explicit density functional calculations for the binary mixture. We also give expressions for the wall tension of the mixture when polymers interact via a simple stepfunction pair potential, and for the case of contact with a polymer-coated wall, which we take to be hard for the colloids but penetrable for the polymers. On the gas side of the fluid-fluid demixing binodal we confirm the wetting transition at the hard wall and predict complete drying of the polymer-coated wall on the liquid side of the binodal. [figures] Read the [full paper] as pdf.

Fluid interfaces

Colloid-polymer mixtures display fluid-fluid interfaces [21] [44], relevant for laser-induced condensation [35], capillary condensation [43] and evaporation [48], immersion in porous media [41], the appearance of the floating liquid phase [52], the competition between sedimentation and phase coexistence [51], tension at a substrate [45], the experimental observation of thermal capillary waves [47], and the contact angle of the liquid-gas interface and a wall [50]. In colloidal rod-sphere mixtures fluid-fluid interfaces were investigated with theory [30] and simulation [42]. Hard sphere fluids were considered at surfaces of porous media [37], in random fiber networks [39], and in one dimensional cases [46].

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