Journal
SOFT MATTER
Volume 8, Issue 27, Pages 7112-7115Publisher
ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
DOI: 10.1039/c2sm26120k
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Funding
- Italian Ministry of Education and Research (MIUR - PRIN Project) [2008CX7WYL]
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Particle settling is a pervasive process in nature, and centrifugation is a versatile separation technique. Yet, the results of settling and ultracentrifugation experiments often appear to contradict the very law on which they are based: Archimedes' principle - arguably, the oldest physical law. The purpose of this paper is delving into the very roots of the concept of buoyancy by means of a combined experimental-theoretical study on sedimentation profiles in colloidal mixtures. Our analysis shows that the standard Archimedes' principle is only a limiting approximation, valid for mesoscopic particles settling in a molecular fluid, and we provide a general expression for the actual buoyancy force. This Generalized Archimedes' Principle accounts for unexpected effects, such as denser particles floating on top of a lighter fluid, which in fact we observe in our experiments.
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