Van der Waals-like instability in suspensions of mutually repelling charged colloids

Abstract

We show theoretically that the purely repulsive screened-Coulomb (or Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey- Overbeek) interaction between charged colloidal particles is compatible with gas-liquid, gas-solid, and solid-solid coexistence in colloidal suspensions of low ionic strength of about 1026 molyliter. This finding may partially resolve the ongoing debate on attractions between like-charged particles.