Van der Waals–Like Instability in Suspensions of Mutually Repelling Charged Colloids

Abstract
We show theoretically that the purely repulsive screened-Coulomb (or Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek) interaction between charged colloidal particles is compatible with gas-liquid, gas-solid, and solid-solid coexistence in colloidal suspensions of low ionic strength of about 106mol/liter. This finding may partially resolve the ongoing debate on attractions between like-charged particles.