Diffusion of Colloidal Fluids in Random Porous Media

Abstract

A simple manner to describe the diffusive relaxation of a colloidal fluid adsorbed in a porous medium is to model the porous medium as a set of spherical particles fixed in space at random positions with prescribed statistical structural properties. Within this model one may describe the relaxation of concentration fluctuations of the adsorbed fluid by simply setting to zero the short-time mobility of one species (the porous matrix) in a theory of the dynamics of equilibrium colloidal mixtures, or by extending such dynamic theory to explicitly consider the porous matrix as a random external field. Here we consider the first approach and employ the self-consistent generalized Langevin equation (SCGLE) theory of the dynamics of equilibrium colloidal mixtures, to describe the dynamics of the mobile component. We conclude that if the correct static structure factors are provided as input, the SCGLE theory correctly predicts the main features of the dynamics of the permeating fluid.