Electrostatics interactions provide tunability for the properties of soft
materials. The electrostatic interactions are sensitive to various tuning
parameters including solvent permittivity, electrolyte valence, size and
concentration, and interfaces. Despite long-term usage of electrostatics in
controlling the soft matter properties, such as buffer system in biology, the
understanding of electrostatics interactions is still limited. Here we
discuss about our researches on the effects of surface polarization on the
electrostatic interactions between ion-containing emulsions, and the effects
of electrolyte concentration on the electrostatic interactions between
colloids. The researches shed light on why classical electrostatic theories
such as the Debye–Hückel theory and even the non-linear Poisson Boltzmann
theory break down in recent electrostatic mediated experiments.
