EuroTech Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Series #1

The newly established EuroTech Working Group on Chemistry and Chemical Engineering is launching a biweekly online seminar series: Every other Wednesday, the group is offering a one-hour talk open to all. Kick-off is on 14 April with the following talk:

Prof. Remco Tuinier
Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology

Does the Gibbs Phase Rule apply to the Phase Behaviour of Colloid-Polymer Mixtures

Abstract
In the last decades it was shown that the stability of colloidal dispersions can be controlled by adding non-adsorbing polymers. Often the depletion-interaction is used as the tool to induce a controlled, tuneable attraction between colloidal particles. In this lecture it is discussed whether a colloid-polymer mixture can be treated as an effective one-component system with controlled attraction and how this description is related to understanding the phase behaviour. In this talk it is demonstrated that mixtures of rod-like colloids plus added depletants exhibit a strikingly rich multi-phase behaviour involving even four- and five-phase equilibria. It is discussed whether the Gibbs phase rule still applies for colloid-polymer mixtures.