2017/04/04 by Pietro Anzini, Anzini, Pietro, Alberto Parola +1
Chemistry · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Electrostatics and Colloid Interactions #FOS: Physical sciences #Material Dynamics and Properties #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Theoretical and Computational Physics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1704.01020
openalex publication_date 2017/04/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We develop a simple model, in the spirit of the Asakura-Oosawa theory, able to describe the effects of surface roughness on the depletion potential as a function of a small set of parameters. The resulting explicit expressions are easily computed, without free parameters, for a wide range of physically interesting conditions. Comparison with the recent numerical simulations [M. Kamp et al., Langmuir, 2016, 32, 1233] shows an encouraging agreement and allows to predict the onset of colloidal aggregation in dilute suspensions of rough particles. Furthermore, the model proves to be suitable to investigate the role of the geometry of the roughness.