Abstract
We study the phase behaviour of mixtures of colloidal spheres and polymers thathave an excluded-volume interaction dispersed in a (background) solvent using theconcept of free volume theory. The depletion layer thickness is calculated from thenegative adsorption of polymer segments around a sphere. The correlation lengthand thermodynamic properties of the excluded-volume interacting polymer chainsin solution are taken into account by using results from the renormalizationgroup theory. For small polymer–colloid size ratios the difference from anideal description of the polymers is small, while for larger size ratios thegas–liquid coexistence region shifts in the direction of higher polymerconcentrations and at the same time the liquid–crystal coexistence region becomesmore extended. Both the gas–liquid region and the gas–liquid–crystalregion become less extended. These features are compared to experiment.
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