Monday, 25 June 2007 - 11:20 AM
Clayton 120
35

Disappearance of the gas-liquid phase transition for highly charged colloids

Antti-Pekka Hynninen and Athanassios Z. Panagiotopoulos. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

We calculate the full phase diagram of spherical charged colloids using Monte Carlo free energy calculations. The system is described using the primitive model, consisting of explicit colloids and counterions in a uniform dielectric continuum. We show that the gas-liquid critical point becomes metastable with respect to a gas-solid phase separation at colloid charges Q>=20e. Figure shows the phase diagram for colloid charge Q=20e in the colloid packing fraction, reduced temperature representation. The phase diagram consists of a broad gas-solid phase coexistence at low temperatures, a narrow fluid-solid coexistence at high temperatures, and a metastable gas-liquid coexistence (whose critical point marked by the star). Employing approximate free energy calculations, we are able to determine the critical temperature Tc below which a broad gas-solid phase separation occurs for highly charged colloids up to Q=2000e and propose a scaling law Tc = Q^0.5. We therefore extend the knowledge of like-charge attraction from modestly charged micellar systems with charge Q < 100e to highly charged colloidal suspensions with Q=2000e.