Modified Booth equation for the calculation of zeta potential

Abstract

 An easy-to-use computer program based on the modified Booth equation (MBE) is developed to calculate the zeta potential of a spherical nonconducting particle from knowledge of the electrophoretic mobility, particle size, and the type and concentration of ions present in the solution. The program is applied to five sets of previously published literature data and the resulting zeta potentials are compared with the values given by the Henry equation to illustrate the extent of the relaxation effect in each case. In four cases, the output zeta potential data are compared with the corresponding values obtained from the rigorous numerical solution of O’Brien and White. Results indicate that the computer program developed here gives a reliable estimate of the zeta potential. The main advantage in using the MBE lies in its capability of calculating the zeta potential even for cases where the experimentally measured mobility exceeds the maximum theoretical mobility predicted by the O’Brien and White solution.