Numerical Study of the Structure and Thermodynamics of Colloidal Suspensions by Variational Method

Abstract

In this paper, we present the results of calculation of the structure and thermodynamics properties of the dispersions colloidal solution ended using the variational method with the scaling process. We assume that the interaction potential between colloids is of Yukawa or Sogami types. The former is purely repulsive, while the second, it involves, in addition to a repulsive part, a Van der Waals attractive tail. We compute the structure factor and thermodynamics properties, using, first, the variational method with the rescaling technique, and second, the integral equation one with the hybridized mean spherical approximation. We first compare the results relative to these theories, and with those obtained within Monte Carlo simulation. We show that results from integral equation method with a Sogami potential and those of simulation are in good quantitative agreement. Finally, our theoretical results are compared to those of experiment by Tata and coworkers. We find that integral equation theory with Sogami potential agrees well with experiment.