Asymmetrical phase separation and gelation in binary mixtures of oppositely charged colloids

Two types of colloidal particles, which are nearly the same in chemical composition but carry opposite surface charges, are mixed in water. Depending on the relative proportion of the oppositely charged particles, the process of aggregation leads to the formation of discrete clusters of various sizes in dilute dispersions, and to the development of particle gel networks in more concentrated systems. Due to the significant difference in the absolute values of surface charges (negative particle: -48 mV, positive particle: +24 mV), the phase separation and the gelation behaviors are asymmetric with respect to the mixing ratio. Mixtures with excess negative particles are more stable, while mixtures with excess positive particles are easily affected by phase separation. The hetero-aggregation triggered by the addition of microscopically large macro-ions is similar to what is often observed in a mono-component charged colloidal system, i.e., phase separation occurs through addition of small electrolyte ions. Within the concentration region investigated here, it is clear that the gel line is buried inside the phase separation region. Gelation occurs only when the number and size of the clusters are large and big enough to connect up into a space-spanning network. Our results indicate that, in this binary mixture of oppositely charged colloids, although the interaction between unlike species is attractive and that between like species is repulsive, the onset of gelation is in fact governed by the equilibrium phase separation, as in the case of purely attractive systems with short-range isotropic interaction.