STRUCTURE OF STERICALLY STABILIZED COLLOIDS

Static, thermodynamic, and rheological data of polymerically stabilize d colloidal dispersions are usually predicted on the basis of ad hoc h ard sphere models. Here, the specific effects of the grafted polymers are explicitly taken into account through a hard core plus a soft tail potential. A systematic analysis of structural and thermodynamic quan tities is performed by using the thermodynamically self-consistent int egral equation scheme of Rogers and Young. Criteria to construct refer ence hard sphere systems, showing quantitative agreement with the true systems, are presented. It is shown that there are regions of the pot ential parameter space where the hard sphere modelization is not possi ble and where the true potential has to be used.