Structure and Thermodynamics of Charged Colloids

A multi-component MSA with non-additive radii (NAR-MSA) is applied to the study of monodisperse polyelectrolyte suspensions, described within the primitive model. The NAR-MSA is analytically solvable, and in practice permits an easy implementation of a rescaled MSA (RMSA). The polyion-polyion structure factor that one obtains compares favorably with the available results of more demanding mixed integral equations. Also, the treatment of all ions on an equivalent footing allows an easy evaluation of the thermodynamic properties of the solution, and hence investigation of liquid-liquid phase transitions.