Non-sequential kinetics in irreversible colloidal adsorption

The kinetics of irreversible adsorption of colloidal particles is analyzed through a statistical description of the transport process. Our approach describes in a consistent way both the transport from the bulk and the interaction with previously adsorbed particles. A surface density expansion for the adsorption rate is obtained. The coefficients of this expansion are obtained from the analysis of situations with only 1, 2, . . . , n pre-adsorbed particles. Also, a mean-field approach allows us to obtain an effective transport equation which is valid near the jamming limit. The formalism is explicitly applied to the adsorption of diffusing hard spheres, obtaining good agreement with non-sequential computer simulations.