IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/phsmap/v631y2023ics0378437122009700.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lecture notes of the 15th international summer school on Fundamental Problems in Statistical Physics: Colloidal dispersions

Author

Listed:
  • Gnan, Nicoletta

Abstract

In this brief contribution we review some basic concepts in the physics of soft matter focusing on colloidal dispersions. In the first part we discuss the phase behavior of hard colloidal particles and, building on a statistical mechanics formalism, we introduce the concept of effective interactions between colloids mediated by the presence of macromolecular additives in the dispersion. We then review some examples of effective interactions starting from the simplest entropy-driven mechanism observed in nature, i.e. the depletion effect, but also discussing more complex interactions as those mediated by a critical co-solute. In the second part, we introduce a novel type of colloids having particles “softness” as an extra control parameter. We focus on a particular type of soft colloid, called microgel, that has a polymeric nature since it is made of a cross-linked polymer network able to respond to external stimuli. Finally, to understand microgels responsiveness we discuss the thermodynamics of swelling of polymer networks described by the Flory-Rehner theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Gnan, Nicoletta, 2023. "Lecture notes of the 15th international summer school on Fundamental Problems in Statistical Physics: Colloidal dispersions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 631(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:631:y:2023:i:c:s0378437122009700
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2022.128412
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437122009700
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.physa.2022.128412?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. C. Hertlein & L. Helden & A. Gambassi & S. Dietrich & C. Bechinger, 2008. "Direct measurement of critical Casimir forces," Nature, Nature, vol. 451(7175), pages 172-175, January.
    2. Maxime J. Bergman & Nicoletta Gnan & Marc Obiols-Rabasa & Janne-Mieke Meijer & Lorenzo Rovigatti & Emanuela Zaccarelli & Peter Schurtenberger, 2018. "A new look at effective interactions between microgel particles," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, December.
    3. Nicoletta Gnan & Emanuela Zaccarelli & Francesco Sciortino, 2014. "Casimir-like forces at the percolation transition," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 1-7, May.
    4. Peter J. Lu & Emanuela Zaccarelli & Fabio Ciulla & Andrew B. Schofield & Francesco Sciortino & David A. Weitz, 2008. "Gelation of particles with short-range attraction," Nature, Nature, vol. 453(7194), pages 499-503, May.
    5. Francesca Bomboi & Flavio Romano & Manuela Leo & Javier Fernandez-Castanon & Roberto Cerbino & Tommaso Bellini & Federico Bordi & Patrizia Filetici & Francesco Sciortino, 2016. "Re-entrant DNA gels," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 1-6, December.
    6. S. Sacanna & W. T. M. Irvine & P. M. Chaikin & D. J. Pine, 2010. "Lock and key colloids," Nature, Nature, vol. 464(7288), pages 575-578, March.
    7. Van Duc Nguyen & Suzanne Faber & Zhibing Hu & Gerard H. Wegdam & Peter Schall, 2013. "Controlling colloidal phase transitions with critical Casimir forces," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 1-6, June.
    8. Sathyanarayana Paladugu & Agnese Callegari & Yazgan Tuna & Lukas Barth & Siegfried Dietrich & Andrea Gambassi & Giovanni Volpe, 2016. "Nonadditivity of critical Casimir forces," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 1-8, September.
    9. Frank Scheffold, 2020. "Pathways and challenges towards a complete characterization of microgels," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-13, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Piet J. M. Swinkels & Zhe Gong & Stefano Sacanna & Eva G. Noya & Peter Schall, 2023. "Visualizing defect dynamics by assembling the colloidal graphene lattice," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    2. Joep Rouwhorst & Christopher Ness & Simeon Stoyanov & Alessio Zaccone & Peter Schall, 2020. "Nonequilibrium continuous phase transition in colloidal gelation with short-range attraction," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-8, December.
    3. Dantchev, Daniel & Vassilev, Vassil M. & Djondjorov, Peter A., 2018. "Analytical results for the Casimir force in a Ginzburg–Landau type model of a film with strongly adsorbing competing walls," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 510(C), pages 302-315.
    4. Li Tian & Clemens Bechinger, 2022. "Surface melting of a colloidal glass," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-5, December.
    5. Kanth, Jampa Maruthi Pradeep & Anishetty, Ramesh, 2013. "Hydrophobic force, a Casimir-like effect due to hydrogen-bond fluctuations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(20), pages 4804-4823.
    6. Marloes H. Bistervels & Balázs Antalicz & Marko Kamp & Hinco Schoenmaker & Willem L. Noorduin, 2023. "Light-driven nucleation, growth, and patterning of biorelevant crystals using resonant near-infrared laser heating," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    7. Agnese I. Curatolo & Ofer Kimchi & Carl P. Goodrich & Ryan K. Krueger & Michael P. Brenner, 2023. "A computational toolbox for the assembly yield of complex and heterogeneous structures," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-13, December.
    8. Yujie Jiang & Ryohei Seto, 2023. "Colloidal gelation with non-sticky particles," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    9. Steffen Bochenek & Fabrizio Camerin & Emanuela Zaccarelli & Armando Maestro & Maximilian M. Schmidt & Walter Richtering & Andrea Scotti, 2022. "In-situ study of the impact of temperature and architecture on the interfacial structure of microgels," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.
    10. Jack E. Bramham & Alexander P. Golovanov, 2022. "Temporal and spatial characterisation of protein liquid-liquid phase separation using NMR spectroscopy," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    11. Tianran Zhang & Dengping Lyu & Wei Xu & Xuan Feng & Ran Ni & Yufeng Wang, 2023. "Janus particles with tunable patch symmetry and their assembly into chiral colloidal clusters," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    12. Boyang Zhou & Urs Gasser & Alberto Fernandez-Nieves, 2023. "Measuring the counterion cloud of soft microgels using SANS with contrast variation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-7, December.
    13. Jens Grauer & Falko Schmidt & Jesús Pineda & Benjamin Midtvedt & Hartmut Löwen & Giovanni Volpe & Benno Liebchen, 2021. "Active droploids," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-8, December.
    14. Chi Zhang & José Muñetón Díaz & Augustin Muster & Diego R. Abujetas & Luis S. Froufe-Pérez & Frank Scheffold, 2024. "Determining intrinsic potentials and validating optical binding forces between colloidal particles using optical tweezers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    15. Dengping Lyu & Wei Xu & Jae Elise L. Payong & Tianran Zhang & Yufeng Wang, 2022. "Low-dimensional assemblies of metal-organic framework particles and mutually coordinated anisotropy," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:631:y:2023:i:c:s0378437122009700. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/physica-a-statistical-mechpplications/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.