Mapping bimodal colloidal depletion systems onto the monodisperse gelation phase diagram
Abstract
Many industries rely on models of colloidal gelation and phase behavior to predict how processing equipment will handle new product formulations. In colloidal systems with nearly uniform particle size it is possible to predict the formation of a gel from only three state variables; however, the extension of this model to bimodal and multimodal systems is not well described. Here we present a systematic simulation study of the attractive bimodal depletion gel phase diagram. For these systems, we find that gelation is highly dependent on total volume fraction, attraction conditions, and bimodal composition. Attraction and composition can be effectively collapsed into a single parameter using the contact-weighted second virial coefficient. This successfully projects the bimodal phase diagram onto the established monodisperse phase diagram, including accurately describing most bulk assembly properties; however, the underlying network structure of these gels remains highly dependent on the details of bimodal composition and attraction.
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BibTeX
@misc{campbell2026mapping,
title = {{Mapping bimodal colloidal depletion systems onto the monodisperse gelation phase diagram}},
author = {Robert A. Campbell and Ziye Zhuang and Ali Mohraz and Safa Jamali},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.33394},
eprint = {2610.33394},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.33394},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Mapping bimodal colloidal depletion systems onto the monodisperse gelation phase diagram
AU - Robert A. Campbell
AU - Ziye Zhuang
AU - Ali Mohraz
AU - Safa Jamali
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/24
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.33394
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.33394
AB - Many industries rely on models of colloidal gelation and phase behavior to predict how processing equipment will handle new product formulations. In colloidal systems with nearly uniform particle size it is possible to predict the formation of a gel from only three state variables; however, the extension of this model to bimodal and multimodal systems is not well described. Here we present a systematic simulation study of the attractive bimodal depletion gel phase diagram. For these systems, we find that gelation is highly dependent on total volume fraction, attraction conditions, and bimodal composition. Attraction and composition can be effectively collapsed into a single parameter using the contact-weighted second virial coefficient. This successfully projects the bimodal phase diagram onto the established monodisperse phase diagram, including accurately describing most bulk assembly properties; however, the underlying network structure of these gels remains highly dependent on the details of bimodal composition and attraction.
ER -