Short-time dynamics of permeable particles in concentrated suspensions.

We study short-time diffusion properties of colloidal suspensions of neutral permeable particles. An individual particle is modeled as a solvent-permeable sphere of interaction radius a and uniform permeability k, with the fluid flow inside the particle described by the Debye-Bueche-Brinkman equation, and outside by the Stokes equation. Using a precise multipole method and the corresponding numerical code HYDROMULTIPOLE that account for higher-order hydrodynamic multipole moments, numerical results are presented for the hydrodynamic function, H(q), the short-time self-diffusion coefficient, D(s), the sedimentation coefficient K, the collective diffusion coefficient, D(c), and the principal peak value H(q(m)), associated with the short-time cage diffusion coefficient, as functions of porosity and volume fraction. Our results cover the full fluid phase regime. Generic features of the permeable sphere model are discussed. An approximate method by Pusey to determine D(s) is shown to agree well with our accurate results. It is found that for a given volume fraction, the wavenumber dependence of a reduced hydrodynamic function can be estimated by a single master curve, independent of the particle permeability, given by the hard-sphere model. The reduced form is obtained by an appropriate shift and rescaling of H(q), parametrized by the self-diffusion and sedimentation coefficients. To improve precision, another reduced hydrodynamic function, h(m)(q), is also constructed, now with the self-diffusion coefficient and the peak value, H(q(m)), of the hydrodynamic function as the parameters. For wavenumbers qa>2, this function is permeability independent to an excellent accuracy. The hydrodynamic function of permeable particles is thus well represented in its q-dependence by a permeability-independent master curve, and three coefficients, D(s), K, and H(q(m)), that do depend on the permeability. The master curve and its coefficients are evaluated as functions of concentration and permeability.