Alexander's prescription for colloidal charge renormalization

Abstract

The interactions between charged colloidal particles in an electrolyte may be described by usual Debye-Hückel theory provided the source of the electric field is suitably renormalized. For spherical colloids, we reconsider and simplify the treatment of the popular proposal put forward by Alexander {\it et al.} [J. Chem. Phys. {\bf 80}, 5776 (1984)], which has proven efficient in predicting renormalized quantities (charge and salt content). We give explicit formulae for the effective charge and describe the most efficient way to apply Alexander's et al. renormalization prescription in practice. Particular attention is paid to the definition of the relevant screening length, an issue that appears confused in the literature.