Scalable Size- and Shape-Selective Purification of Colloidal Building Blocks via Excluded Volume Interactions

[2608.10759] Scalable Size- and Shape-Selective Purification of Colloidal Building Blocks via Excluded Volume Interactions Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Condensed Matter > Soft Condensed Matter arXiv:2608.10759 (cond-mat) [Submitted on 11 Aug 2026 ( v1 ), last revised 21 Aug 2026 (this version, v2)] Title: Scalable Size- and Shape-Selective Purification of Colloidal Building Blocks via Excluded Volume Interactions Authors: Thomas Kainz , Isobel McSweeney , Andrei-Micea Top , Nicolas Bruder , David J. Pine , Andrea Dodero , Ullrich Steiner View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: Excluded-volume interactions, arising solely from steric constraints, play a crucial role in determining the structure, dynamics, and phase behaviour of colloidal suspensions. This is particularly important for non-spherical particles, where orientation-dependent effects also become significant. In this study, we employ depletion-driven phase separation to develop a scalable, size-selective method for purifying spherical and non-spherical colloidal clusters that exhibit an interplay of concave and convex surface areas. Phase diagrams of charge-stabilised polystyrene spheres ranging in size from 267 to 1008 nm demonstrate that the mixing-demixing transition occurs across a range of surfactant concentrations rather than at a single threshold. Taking advantage of this transition width enables the purification of a single component from binary mixtures at size ratios as low as 1.6 in a single step. When the same approach is applied to tetrameric colloidal clusters, these are enriched fifteenfold relative to uncoordinated spheres. Importantly, the efficiency of sorting depends not only on the effective size but also on the geometry of the aggregate. For instance, anisotropic, weakly fused clusters separate more efficiently than spherical aggregates because their concave surface curvature is reduced compared to unfused clusters. These findings establish excluded-volume-driven sorting as a practical and scalable route for purifying colloidal building blocks for hierarchical assembly. Subjects: Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) Cite as: arXiv:2608.10759 [cond-mat.soft] (or arXiv:2608.10759v2 [cond-mat.soft] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.10759 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Related DOI : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2026.141419 Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources Submission history From: Ullrich Steiner [ view email ] [v1] Tue, 11 Aug 2026 10:18:45 UTC (19,031 KB) [v2] Fri, 21 Aug 2026 14:35:22 UTC (23,481 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: cond-mat.soft < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: cond-mat References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab) Major funding support from

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