The phase behavior of charged colloidal systems has been studied recently by the density functional theory formalism (DFT) [R. van Roij, M. Dijkstra, and J. P. Hansen, Phys. Rev. E 59, 2010 (1999)]. A key feature of this approach is the appearance of a density and temperature-dependent effective Hamiltonian between the charged colloids. Under certain approximations, the effective Hamiltonian is made up only of a sum of position-independent one-body or volume terms and two-body colloid-separation dependent terms. In the limit of low colloidal densities, the DFT results do not reduce to the familiar Debye-Hückel limiting law nor do the results agree with previous work based on an identical approach but were developed using traditional statistical-mechanical methods [B. Beresford-Smith, D. Y. C. Chan, and D. J. Mitchell J. Colloid Interface Sci. 105, 216 (1985)]. This paper provides a reconciliation of these differences and comments on the significance of the one-body volume terms in the effective Hamiltonian of a system of charged colloids in determining thermodynamics and phase behavior.

• Received 15 November 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.63.061806