Diffusiophoresis in a concentrated suspension of colloidal spheres in nonelectrolyte gradients

The diffusiophoretic motion of a homogeneous suspension of identical spherical particles is considered under conditions of small Reynolds and Peclet numbers. The effects of interaction of the individual particles are taken into explicit account by employing a unit cell model which is known to provide good predictions for the sedimentation of monodisperse suspensions of spherical particles. The appropriate equations of conservation of mass and momentum are solved for each cell, in which a spherical particle is envisaged to be surrounded by a concentric shell of suspending fluid, and the diffusiophoretic velocity of the particle is calculated for various cases. Analytical expressions of this mean particle velocity are obtained in closed form as functions of the volume fraction of the particles. Comparisons between the ensemble-averaged diffusiophoretic velocity of a test particle in a dilute suspension and our cell-model results are made. Received: 30 June 1999 Accepted: 8 December 1999