Authors

A. Milchev;A. Bhattacharya

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

J. Chem. Phys.

Keywords

BEAD-SPRING MODEL; MESOSCOPIC PARTICLES; DYNAMIC PROPERTIES; SIMULATION; DILUTE; CHAINS; POTENTIALS; SEMIDILUTE; MIXTURES; PRESSURE; Physics, Atomic, Molecular & Chemical

Abstract

An off-lattice bead-spring model of a polymer solution in a container with impenetrable walls is used to study the depletion interaction of a colloid particle with the planar wall by means of a Monte Carlo simulation. As expected, this interaction is found to depend essentially on the ratio rho=R/R-g of the particle radius R to the mean radius of gyration R-g of the polymer chains in the case of dilute and semidilute solutions. For large particle to polymer size ratio rho > 1 this effective force is attractive and decreases steadily with growing distance D of the colloid from the wall. It is found to scale linearly with rho in agreement with recent theoretical predictions. In the opposite case of rho < 1 the depletion force is found to change nonmonotonically with D and go through a maximum at a particular distance D(max)less than or equal toR(g). In both cases, however, local variations of the polymer density profile, which we detect at higher polymer concentrations, are found to influence the depletion force and even to change it locally from attraction to repulsion. The monomer density distribution far away from/or around the colloid in the vicinity of the wall is also investigated and related to the observed behavior of the depletion force.

Journal Title

Journal of Chemical Physics

Volume

117

Issue/Number

11

Publication Date

1-1-2002

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

5415

Last Page

5420

WOS Identifier

WOS:000177684400035

ISSN

0021-9606

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