Abstract
Phase behavior of a neutral colloid dispersion is investigated based on an improved Asakura-Oosawa (AO) model. Several observations are made: (i) an increase of solvent fugacity can enlarge the fluid-solid (FS) coexistence region, and this makes fugacity become a powerful factor in tuning a vapor-liquid transition (VLT) critical point metastability. (ii) A reducing of size ratio of the solvent versus colloid particle can enlarge the FS coexistence region as well as lower the VLT critical temperature, and a combination of the two effects makes the size ratio an extremely powerful factor adjusting the VLT critical point metastability. (iii) Existence of a long-range attraction term in the effective colloid potential is not a necessary condition for occurrence of a vapor-solid transition (VST), and short-ranged oscillatory depletion potential also can induce the VST over an even broader temperature range. (iv) Sensitivity of the freezing line on the size ratio is disclosed, and one can make use of the sensitivity to prepare mono-disperse colloid of well-controlled diameter by following a fractionated crystallization scheme; moreover, broadening of the FST coexistence region by raising the solvent fugacity and/or lowering the size ratio has important implication for crystallization process.
Highlights
Colloid dispersions are solutions of solid particles with mesoscopic size dissolved in a suitable solvent
Colloid dispersions are very useful model systems for basic researches, since the effective potential between two colloid particles can be tuned in a well-controlled way, and rich structural orderings and phase behaviors can be induced by varying the solvent conditions; whereas such possibility of varying the effective inter-particle potential continuously is normally never found in small molecule systems
Once the solvent mediated potential (SMP) is determined, phase behaviors of the complex colloid dispersions can be understood in terms of physical concepts originally coined for simple atomic fluids, phase diagrams can be calculated on the basis of an effective single component macro-fluid approximation with the help of theoretical approach suitable for simple atomic fluids
Summary
Several observations are made: (i) an increase of solvent fugacity can enlarge the fluid-solid (FS) coexistence region, and this makes fugacity become a powerful factor in tuning a vapor-liquid transition (VLT) critical point metastability. (ii) A reducing of size ratio of the solvent versus colloid particle can enlarge the FS coexistence region as well as lower the VLT critical temperature, and a combination of the two effects makes the size ratio an extremely powerful factor adjusting the VLT critical point metastability.
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