Charged colloid-polymer mixtures: A study on electrostatic depletion attraction

Abstract

In this work, light scattering methods have been used to study the effect of adding charged polymer chains on the structural and dynamic properties of a charged colloidal system. The experimental measurements of the static structure factor S(cc)(q) show that as the polymer concentration increases, the main peak moves to higher q-values, which is interpreted in terms of the electrostatically enhanced depletion attraction induced by the polymer. Moreover, we found that the shift of the peak depends on the interplay between two relevant length scales, the polymer radius of gyration, R(g), and the Debye length, κ(-1). To reach these conclusions, the polymer reference interaction site model has been employed to explain the experimental results and to study how the effective depletion attraction depends on the polymer concentration, R(g) and κ(-1). Additionally, the measurements of the dynamic structure factor f(q, τ) indicate that the colloidal diffusion increases with the polymer concentration. Both static and dynamic analysis point out that the repulsion between colloids becomes weaker as the charged polymer is added.