Influence of the potential range on the aggregation of colloidal particles

This work is a theoretical contribution to the understanding of the aggregation process in dilute colloidal suspensions. We employ Brownian dynamics simulations, with homodisperse solid spherical particles, neglecting hydrodynamic interactions between the particles. We study the influence of the shape of the interaction potential on the aggregation process and in particular the effect of an increase of the attraction range with regard to the DLVO potential. It is concluded that it can change either the aggregates shape and the aggregation kinetics. We show that the fractal properties, the cluster size distribution and the average cluster size prove to be capable of characterizing those effects, at least in the simulations, with two well-separated attraction ranges. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.