Adsorption of fluids on colloidal particles: a density functional approach

Abstract

Density functional results are presented for adsorption of simple fluids on colloidal particles. Two models of colloidal particles are considered: first a study of adsorption on a large hard sphere, and second the application of the theory to describe adsorption on a large particle interacting via Lennard-Jones type attractive-repulsive forces. In both cases the theoretical predictions are compared with Monte Carlo data. It was found that the accuracy of the theory becomes better when the size of the colloidal particle increases. A study is also reported of wetting and its dependence on the size of the colloidal particles. As expected, the wetting temperature increases with decreasing colloidal particle size.