Theory is developed to address a significant problem of how two charged dielectric particles interact in the presence of a polarizable medium that is a dilute solution of a strong electrolyte. The electrostatic force is defined by characteristic parameters for the interacting particles (charge, radius, and dielectric constant) and for the medium (permittivity and Debye length), and is expressed in the form of a converging infinite series. The limiting case of weak screening and large inter-particle separation is considered, which corresponds to small (macro)ions that carry constant charge. The theory yields a solution in the limit of monopole and dipole terms that agrees exactly with existing analytical expressions, which are generally used to describe ion-ion and ion-molecular interactions in a medium. Results from the theory are compared with DLVO theory and with experimental measurements for the electrostatic force between two PMMA particles contained in a nonpolar solvent (hexadecane) with an added charge control agent.

A new approach has been developed for the kinetic description of the screening of the charge of macroparticles and the determination of the distribution of the effective potential in a nonequilibrium...

The electrostatic interaction of two charged dielectric spherical particles with a nonuniform freecharge distribution over their surfaces in an external homogeneous electric field is considered. An exact solution for the electric field potential is obtained, and an analytical expression for the interaction force between these two particles is found. The case of a uniform free-charge distribution is considered in detail, and the region of parameters in the plane “the ratio of the radii vs. the ratio of the charges,” where repulsion between two like-charged particles turns into attraction as the interparticle distance decreases is established.

A kinetic model is proposed for ion–molecular processes involving charged particles of a humid air plasma produced by a fast electron beam. The model includes more than 600 processes involving electrons and 41 positive and 14 negative ions, including hydrated ions H₃O⁺ (H₂O)_n and O₂⁻(H₂O)_n with n = 1, 2, …, 12. The energy costs of production of electron–ion pairs and electronic and vibrational (for water molecules, also rotational) excitation of molecules are calculated in nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, air, and humid air. A method is proposed for calculating the energy costs in mixtures by the calculation data in pure gases. The evolution of the plasma composition is studied by the numerical solution of a system of 56 time-dependent balance equations for the number of charged particles of plasma by the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method. The steady-state composition of plasma is determined by solving nonlinear steady-state balance equations for the ionization rates of humid air from 10 to 10¹⁶ cm^–3/s and the fraction of water molecules from 10^–3% to 1.5%. It is established that, for water vapor content (the ratio of the number density of water molecules to the total number density of air molecules) of 0.015–1.5% in air at atmospheric pressure and room temperature, the main ion species are two types of positive ions H₃O⁺ (H₂O)_n with the number of water molecules n = 5, 6 and three species of negative ions O₂⁻(H₂O)_n with n = 5, 8, 9.

The problem of electrostatic interactions between colloidal particles in an electrolyte solution has been solved within the Debye–Hückel approximation using the boundary condition of constant potential.

Various methods for determining the Coulomb logarithm in the kinetic theory of transport and various variants of the choice of the plasma screening constant, taking into account and disregarding the...