Effective interactions between charged nanoparticles in water: What is left from the DLVO theory?

The keystone of the modelling of complex systems is the potential of mean force (PMF) between particles. This review focuses on recent numerical simulation studies that concern the computation of the PMF between charged nanoparticles in solution. Such simulations explicitly sample the configurations of the microions or water molecules over which the potential is averaged out. The studies rely on different levels of modelling and permit to quantify the relative amplitude of the different factors governing the interaction, such as the structure of the nanoparticle, the polarisability of microions, or hydrophobic interactions. We discuss the conditions in which the potential of mean force can safely be expressed as a DLVO potential, and why in some cases such a simple analytical expression cannot be used.