Title: COLLOIDAL SUSPENSIONS CONFINED TO A FILM: LOCAL STRUCTURE AND FILM STABILITY
Author(s): D.T.Wasan, A.Nikolov (Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616, USA), A.Trokhymchuk (Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 1 Svientsitskii Str., 79011 Lviv, Ukraine; Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA), D.Henderson (Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA)

This paper summarizes recent experimental and theoretical research conducted in our laboratories on understanding the properties of colloidal suspensions confined to a film. The results of statistical mechanics modelling to explain some experiments on thinning liquid films formed from concentrated mono- and bidisperse colloidal suspensions are reported. The effect of colloidal particle size bidispersity on the local density distribution and film stability is discussed in detail.

Key words: colloidal suspensions, disjoining pressure, film stability
PACS: 82.70.Dd, 64.60.Cn, 64.75.+g, 65.50.+m