Langmuir, Vol.24, No.4, 1160-1164, 2008
Electrostatic interactions of colloidal particles in nonpolar solvents: Role of surface chemistry and charge control agents
We study the electrostatic and hydrodynamic interactions of colloidal particles in nonpolar solvents. Using blinking optical tweezers, we can extract the screening length, k(-1), the effective surface potential, vertical bar e zeta*vertical bar, and the hydrodynamic radius, a(h), in a single measurement. We apply this technique to suspensions of polystyrene and poly(methyl methacrylate) particles in hexadecane with soluble charge control agents, aerosol sodium di-2-ethylhexylsulfosuccinate (AOT) and polyisobutylene succinimide (OLOA-1200). We find that the electrostatic interactions of these particles depend sensitively on surface composition as well as on the concentration and chemistry of the charge control agent.