Distribution of porous colloidal particles in an energy field

The spatial distribution of colloidal particles in an energy field is evalu ated theoretically. The field may be established by a relatively large obje ct such as a rigid wall, a closed boundary, and a particle. The set of nonl inear hypernetted chain equations describing the variations of the correlat ion functions for particle-particle and particle-object interactions is sol ved. A numerical scheme based on the discrete Fourier transform is proposed for the former, and a Newton-Raphson iterative method for the latter. Thre e cases are examined to illustrate the method proposed, namely, particles i n a planar slit, cylindrical pore, and square duct. The qualitative behavio r of the spatial variation of the concentration of colloidal par-tides pred icted by the present study is consistent with that observed experimentally by D.H. Van Winkle and C.A. Murray [J. Chem. Phys. 89 (1988) 3885]. (C) 199 9 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.