Accurate description of bulk and interfacial properties in colloid-polymer mixtures

TL;DR

This paper uses large-scale Monte Carlo simulations with effective potentials to accurately predict bulk and interfacial properties of colloid-polymer mixtures, matching experimental results without fitting parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation approach incorporating polymer nonideality and soft colloid-polymer repulsion, achieving precise predictions of phase behavior and interfacial properties.

Findings

Predicted binodal matches recent experimental data

Interfacial tension aligns quantitatively with experiments

Capillary length predictions agree with observed values

Abstract

Large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of a phase-separating colloid-polymer mixture are performed and compared to recent experiments. The approach is based on effective interaction potentials in which the central monomers of self-avoiding polymer chains are used as effective coordinates. By incorporating polymer nonideality together with soft colloid-polymer repulsion, the predicted binodal is in excellent agreement with recent experiments. In addition, the interfacial tension as well as the capillary length are in quantitative agreement with experimental results obtained at a number of points in the phase-coexistence region, without the use of any fit parameters