Synergistic effects of nanoparticles and polymers on depletion and structural interactions

An experimental study was performed to investigate the synergistic effects of two different solution components on the depletion and structural forces between colloidal particles. Using silica nanoparticles and anionic poly(acrylic acid) polymer, it was found that the depletion and structural forces measured between a 30 μm diameter silica sphere and a flat silica plate (obtained using colloidal probe atomic force microscopy) were substantially greater than the sum of the forces obtained in systems containing only nanoparticles and only polymer. This result arises because the anionic polymer chains adsorb to the nanoparticles, creating a complex that is over twice as large as either component. Although the number density of depletants decreases with such complexation, the larger size results in much greater forces at longer ranges. In addition, the measured force profiles could be well described using a force model in which all components were treated as hard, charged spheres. The results clearly indicate that predicting the depletion force in systems with multiple depletant components, such as the one used here, can be much more complicated than simply adding the forces contributed from each component independently.