Charged colloidal heteroaggregation kinetics

A model for describing heteroaggregation kinetics has been developed and tested with experiments in a colloidal system composed of positively and negatively charged particles. At first order, the model reduces to the classical Hogg, Healy, and Fuerstenau approximation. Static light scattering was used to monitor the aggregations. The dependence of the initial aggregation rate on the relative particle fraction and on the surface charges was studied and compared with the theoretical predictions. The experimental results indicated that first-order approximation cannot be used to describe the kinetics. However, good agreement was found when second order was introduced in the theoretical model.