title: Temperature-sensitive colloidal phase behavior induced by critical Casimir forces.
abstract: We report Monte Carlo simulations of phase behavior of colloidal suspensions with near-critical binary solvents using effective pair potentials from experiments. At off-critical solvent composition, the calculated phase diagram agrees well with measurements of the experimental system, indicating that many-body effects are limited. Close to the critical composition, however, agreement between experiment and simulation becomes poorer, signaling the increased importance of many-body effects. Both at and off the critical solvent concentration, the colloidal phase diagram is qualitatively similar to those of molecular systems and obeys the principle of corresponding states with one striking difference: it occurs in a narrow temperature interval of <1 °C below the solvent phase separation temperature.
authors.affiliation: Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Minh Triet
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Dang
authors.forename: Ana Vila
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Verde
authors.forename: Van Duc
authors.initials: VD
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.forename: Peter G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Bolhuis
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schall
mesh_terms: D003102:Colloids / Q000737:chemistry; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D012997:Solvents / Q000737:chemistry; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D003102:Colloids; D012997:Solvents