Project B4
Computer Simulation of Electrokinetics in Colloidal Systems
Project leaders
Summary
Electrophoresis in the lowsalt regime has been understood in terms of a scaling theory, where an approximate equivalence between lowsalt and highsalt systems, and good agreement with experiments in B1, could be established. Computational limitations of the existing "raspberry model" have prompted us to alternatively solve the continuum electrokinetic equations numerically, for which we are currently developing selfwritten programs. The planned future investigations shall, on the one hand, be used to improve the gained understanding more quantitatively, but, on the other hand, mainly study new subjects. These comprise diffusion, electrophoresis, and dynamic structure factors in dilute systems, crystals, and mixtures, in both equilibrium and nonequilibrium conditions. This research implies strong links to projects B1 and B2. An unsolved question which shall be of particular interest is the observed nonmonotonicity of the electrophoretic mobility as a function of volume fraction.