Calculations of van der Waals forces in 2-dimensionally anisotropic materials and its application to carbon black

Abstract

We present calculations of the van der Waals force for carbon black dispersions in both aqueous and nonaqueous media using Lifshitz theory. The microstructure and composition of carbon black are complex, but an initial approximation to the shell-like microstructure of carbon black allows the local interaction of carbon black particles to be approximated as oriented domains of graphite. The dielectric spectra for graphite, which has a 2-dimensional anisotropy due to its the layered microstructure, is required for the Lifshitz theory van der Waals force calculations. The anisotropic dielectric spectra of graphite (which behaves as a semiconductor) was constructed by modeling the conduction or ..