DLVO theory

The DLVO theory (named after Boris Derjaguin and Lev Landau, Evert Verwey and Theodoor Overbeek) explains the aggregation and kinetic stability of aqueous dispersions quantitatively and describes the force between charged surfaces interacting through a liquid medium. It combines the effects of the van der Waals attraction and the electrostatic repulsion due to the so-called double layer of counterions. The electrostatic part of the DLVO interaction is computed in the mean field approximation in the limit of low surface potentials - that is when the potential energy of an elementary charge on the surface is much smaller than the thermal energy scale, . For two spheres of radius each having a charge (expressed in units of the elementary charge) separated by a center-to-center distance in a fluid of dielectric constant containing a concentration of monovalent ions, the electrostatic potential takes the form of a screened-Coulomb or Yukawa potential, where is the Bjerrum length, is the potential energy, ≈ 2.71828 is Euler's number, is the inverse of the Debye–Hückel screening length (); is given by , and is the thermal energy scale at absolute temperature , is ?. DLVO theory is a theory of colloidal dispersion stability in which zeta potential is used to explain that as two particles approach one another their ionic atmospheres begin to overlap and a repulsion force is developed. In this theory, two forces are considered to impact on colloidal stability: Van der Waals forces and electrical double layer forces. The total potential energy is described as the sum of the attraction potential and the repulsion potential. When two particles approach each other, electrostatic repulsion increases and the interference between their electrical double layers increases. However, the Van der Waals attraction also increases as they get closer. At each distance, the net potential energy of the smaller value is subtracted from the larger value. At very close distances, the combination of these forces results in a deep attractive well, which is referred to as the primary minimum.