Effective charge of cylindrical and spherical colloids immersed in an electrolyte: the quasi-planar limit

Abstract

We consider the nonlinear Poisson–Boltzmann theory for a single cylindrical or spherical macro-ion in symmetric 1:1, together with asymmetric 1:2 and 2:1 electrolytes. We focus on the regime where , the ratio of the macro-ion radius a over the inverse Debye length in the bulk electrolyte, is large. Analyzing the structure of the analytical expansion emerging from a multiple scale analysis, we uncover a hidden structure for the electrostatic potential. This structure, which appears after a heuristic resummation, suggests a new and convenient expansion scheme that we present and work out in detail. We show that novel exact results can thereby be obtained, in particular pertaining to effective charge properties, in complete agreement with the direct numerical solution to the problem.