Soret Motion of a Charged Spherical Colloid

Abstract

The thermophoretic motion of a charged spherical colloidal particle and its accompanying cloud of counterions and co-ions in a temperature gradient is studied theoretically. Using the Debye-Huckel approximation, the Soret drift velocity of a weakly charged colloid is calculated analytically. For highly charged colloids, the nonlinear system of electrokinetic equations is solved numerically, and the effects of high surface potential, dielectrophoresis, and convection are examined. Our results are in good agreement with some of the recent experiments on highly charged colloids without using adjustable parameters.