Rates of the colloid coagulation in the presence of irreversibly adsorbing and non‐adsorbing polymers

Abstract

We have developed an analytic self‐consistent field theory of the effective interactions between nano‐ colloids mediated by irreversibly adsorbing polymers and non‐adsorbing polymers having a gyration radius much larger than that of colloids. By making use of this theory, we have calculated the potential of the polymer‐mediated forces for the above cases of polymer adsorption. On the basis of the obtained results for the polymer‐mediated potentials, we have obtained the stability ratio and rate of the coagulation in the presence of adsorbing and non‐adsorbing polymers. As a final result of our studies, we constructed the coagulation diagram that quantifies the combined effect of the Van der Waals and polymer‐mediated forces on the rate of colloid coagulation. Kinetic stability of the material‐specific colloid systems is discussed. POLYM. COMPOS., 2013. © 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers

Polymer-mediated interactions and their effect on the coagulation–fragmentation of nano-colloids: a self-consistent field theory approach

“…: (18) Note that up to the prefactor proportional to r p 2 , the above expression agrees with the scaling result of Sear. 69 The corresponding expression for K 0 (H) describing our result for the potential of the depletion interactions in the strong overlap limit f P [ 1 reads…”

“…From the theoretical standpoint, in the described protein limit the polymers cannot be modeled as individual so particles interacting with colloids, which brings essential mathematical complications to the theoretical description of PMF. Free non-adsorbing polymers are known 18 to play in favor of increasing the coagulation rate, while the irreversibly adsorbed polymers are proven to be one of the most effective stabilizers against the coagulation. The magnitude of the above polymer density correlations, in turn, is known 14,15 to signicantly depend on the excluded volume interactions.…”

“…Specically, we intend to investigate how the presence of free polymers affects the kinetic stability of the polymer sterically stabilized colloids interacting through van der Waals forces. Free non-adsorbing polymers are known 18 to play in favor of increasing the coagulation rate, while the irreversibly adsorbed polymers are proven to be one of the most effective stabilizers against the coagulation. The rate of colloid coagulation is therefore determined by the counterplay of the above competitive effects that both originate from the polymer-ller adsorption and entropic interactions.…”

Conductivity of diblock copolymer system filled with conducting nano‐particles: Effect of copolymer morphology

“…Energy of immersion 21,[39][40][41] W of a single filler in DBC can be obtained by calculating the excess grand potential caused by the presence of this filler in DBC. This calculation requires specifying the form of the interaction between fillers and polymers as an input.…”

Conductivity of Insulating Diblock Copolymer System Filled with Conductive Particles Having Different Affinities for Dissimilar Copolymer Blocks

“…Each copolymer molecule having the polymerization degree N , is comprised of two blocks A and B each containing same monomers. The energy of immersion of a filler into inhomogeneous polymer system essentially depends on the relation between the entropic interactions [ 26 ] between fillers and polymers and the affinity of this filler for polymers [ 27 ]. The interplay between the above two effects determines, in particular, stability of fillers against coagulation [ 28 ] underlying their ability to form clusters (agglomerates).…”