Two Studies of Colloidal Interactions: Electric Polarizability and Protein Crystallization. Final Report

摘要

During this grant period, the focus was on five topics concerning electric field effects on colloids. The first topic focuses on electric interactions between charged colloids in the absence of external fields, and the remaining four deal with colloids in the presence of external fields. The topics are (1) calculation of the effect of confinement on the pair-potential between like-charged colloids, (2) experimental determination of the interparticle potential under the conditions of dielectric polarization, (3) measurement of the evolution of structure of ER fluids, (4) synthesis of novel colloids designed for ER studies, and (5) computer modeling of polarization of surface charge. Studies of the phase behavior of mixtures of proteins and polymers were initiated. The motivation was to test recent theories that suggested that optimal conditions for protein crystallization could be obtained using such mixtures. Combined light scattering measurements of the virial coefficients and determination of the phase diagram of protein/polymer mixtures revealed that the theoretical picture needs to be substantially modified.