Interaction forces between colloidal particles in liquid: theory and experiment.

The interaction forces acting between colloidal particles in suspensions play an important part in determining the properties of a variety of materials, the behaviour of a range of industrial and environmental processes. Below we briefly review the theories of the colloidal forces between particles and surfaces including London-van der Waals forces, electrical double layer forces, solvation forces, hydrophobic forces and steric forces. In the framework of Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek (DLVO) theory, theoretical predictions of total interparticle interaction forces are discussed. A survey of direct measurements of the interaction forces between colloidal particles as a function of the surface separation is presented. Most of the measurements have been carried out mainly using the atomic force microscopy (AFM) as well as the surface force apparatus (SFA) in the liquid phase. With the highly sophisticated and versatile techniques that are employed by far, the existing interaction theories between surfaces have been validated and advanced. In addition, the direct force measurements by AFM have also been useful in the explaining or understanding of more complex phenomena and in engineering the products and processes occurring in many industrial applications.

Correlation of the gradient diffusion coefficients of human lactoferrin with interparticle interactions validated by photon correlation spectroscopy.

The gradient diffusion coefficients of recombinant human lactoferrin, a glycoprotein that is of commercial interest, have been extensively investigated theoretically and experimentally. A theoretical prediction was developed to allow calculation of the thermodynamic coefficient in terms of the electrostatic repulsive forces, London-van der Waals forces, entropic forces and additional interactions of unknown source and determination of the hydrodynamic coefficient by a perturbation theory method. In addition, dilute limit calculations were carried out for both of them. The thermodynamic and hydrodynamic coefficients were incorporated in the generalised Stokes-Einstein equation to calculate the gradient diffusion coefficient. Dynamic light scattering experiments were also conducted under different physiochemical conditions in which the gradient diffusion coefficients and the mean sizes of the macromolecules were measured. It was shown that of the theoretical approaches studied, good quantitative agreement between theory and experiment was found.