Experimental phase diagram of a model colloid-polymer mixture in the protein limit

Sterically stabilized silica nanoparticles were synthesized, and turbidity measurements confirmed that they behaved as hard spheres in cyclohexane. Poly(isoprene) was added to give mixtures in the protein limit with a polymer coil/colloid radius ratio of 4.8. Their phase behavior under good solvent conditions was studied experimentally. The critical colloid volume fraction was phi = 0.13, whereas recent simulations (Bolhuis, P. G.; Meijer, E. J.; Louis, A. A. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2003, 90, 068304) predicted phi = 0.24. This difference is ascribed to the fact that many systems showing good solvent scaling behavior of the polymer still have a Flory-Huggins parameter close to 0.5, for instance, chi = 0.45 in this work.