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Di Credico B, Odriozola G, Mascotto S, Meyer A, Tripaldi L, Moncho-Jordá A. Controlling the anisotropic self-assembly of polybutadiene-grafted silica nanoparticles by tuning three-body interaction forces. SOFT MATTER 2022; 18:8034-8045. [PMID: 36226549 DOI: 10.1039/d2sm00943a] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Recently, the significant improvements in polymer composites properties have been mainly attributed to the ability of filler nanoparticles (NPs) to self-assemble into highly anisotropic self-assembled structures. In this work, we investigate the self-assembly of core-shell NPs composed of a silica core grafted with polybutadiene (PB) chains, generating the so-called "hairy" NPs (HNPs), immersed in tetrahydrofuran solvent. While uncoated silica beads aggregate forming uniform compact structures, the presence of a PB shell affects the silica NPs organization to the point that by increasing the polymer density at the corona, they tend to self-assemble into linear chain-like structures. To reproduce the experimental observations, we propose a theoretical model for the two-body that considers the van der Waals attractive energy together with the polymer-induced repulsive steric contribution and includes an additional three-body interaction term. This term arises due to the anisotropic distribution of PB, which increases their concentration near the NPs contact region. The resulting steric repulsion experienced by a third NP approaching the dimer prevents its binding close to the dimer bond and favors the growth of chain-like structures. We find good agreement between the simulated and experimental self-assembled superstructures, confirming that this three-body steric repulsion plays a key role in determining the cluster morphology of these core-shell NPs. The model also shows that further increasing the grafting density leads to low-density gel-like open structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Barbara Di Credico
- Department of Materials Science, INSTM, University of Milano-Bicocca, Via R. Cozzi, 55, 20125 Milano, Italy.
| | - Gerardo Odriozola
- Área de Física de Procesos Irreversibles, División de Ciencias Básicas e Ingeniería, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco, Av. San Pablo 180, 02200 Ciudad de México, Mexico
| | - Simone Mascotto
- Institut für Anorganische und Angewandte Chemie, Universität Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 6, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Andreas Meyer
- Institut für Physikalische Chemie, Universität Hamburg, Grindelallee 117, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Laura Tripaldi
- Department of Materials Science, INSTM, University of Milano-Bicocca, Via R. Cozzi, 55, 20125 Milano, Italy.
| | - Arturo Moncho-Jordá
- Institute Carlos I for Theoretical and Computational Physics, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada, Campus Fuentenueva S/N, 18071, Granada, Spain.
- Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Granada, Campus Fuentenueva S/N, 18071 Granada, Spain
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Peredo-Ortiz R, Zubieta Rico PF, Cortés-Morales EC, Pérez-Ángel GG, Voigtmann T, Medina-Noyola M, Elizondo-Aguilera LF. Non-equilibrium relaxation and aging in the dynamics of a dipolar fluid quenched towards the glass transition. JOURNAL OF PHYSICS. CONDENSED MATTER : AN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS JOURNAL 2021; 34:084003. [PMID: 34798621 DOI: 10.1088/1361-648x/ac3b75] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2021] [Accepted: 11/19/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
The recently developed non-equilibrium self-consistent generalized Langevin equation theory of the dynamics of liquids of non-spherically interacting particles [2016J. Phys. Chem. B1207975] is applied to the description of the irreversible relaxation of a thermally and mechanically quenched dipolar fluid. Specifically, we consider a dipolar hard-sphere liquid quenched (attw= 0) from full equilibrium conditions towards different ergodic-non-ergodic transitions. Qualitatively different scenarios are predicted by the theory for the time evolution of the system after the quench (tw> 0), that depend on both the kind of transition approached and the specific features of the protocol of preparation. Each of these scenarios is characterized by the kinetics displayed by a set of structural correlations, and also by the development of two characteristic times describing the relaxation of the translational and rotational dynamics, allowing us to highlight the crossover from equilibration to aging in the system and leading to the prediction of different underlying mechanisms and relaxation laws for the dynamics at each of the glass transitions explored.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ricardo Peredo-Ortiz
- Instituto de Física, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Av. Manuel Nava 6, Zona Universitaria, 78290 San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
| | - Pablo F Zubieta Rico
- Instituto de Física, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Av. Manuel Nava 6, Zona Universitaria, 78290 San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
- Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States of America
| | - Ernesto C Cortés-Morales
- Instituto de Física, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Av. Manuel Nava 6, Zona Universitaria, 78290 San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, United States of America
| | - Gabriel G Pérez-Ángel
- Departamento de Física Aplicada, CINVESTAV del IPN, A. P. 73 'Cordemex', 97310 Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico
| | - Thomas Voigtmann
- Institut für Materialphysik im Weltraum, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt (DLR), Linder Höhe 51170 Köln, Germany
- Department of Physics, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Magdaleno Medina-Noyola
- Instituto de Física, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Av. Manuel Nava 6, Zona Universitaria, 78290 San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
| | - Luis F Elizondo-Aguilera
- Instituto de Física, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Av. Manuel Nava 6, Zona Universitaria, 78290 San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
- Institut für Materialphysik im Weltraum, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt (DLR), Linder Höhe 51170 Köln, Germany
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Misra C, Ranganathan VT, Bandyopadhyay R. Influence of medium structure on the physicochemical properties of aging colloidal dispersions investigated using the synthetic clay LAPONITE®. SOFT MATTER 2021; 17:9387-9398. [PMID: 34605527 DOI: 10.1039/d1sm00987g] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Physical aging in colloidal dispersions manifests as a reduction in kinetic freedom of the colloids. In aqueous dispersions of charged clay colloids, the role of interparticle electrostatic interactions in determining the aging dynamics has been evaluated extensively. Despite water being the dispersion medium, the influence of water structure on the physicochemical properties of aging clay dispersions has, however, not been considered before. In this work, we use LAPONITE®, a model hectorite clay mineral that acquires surface charges when dispersed in water, to study the relative contributions of dispersion medium structure and interparticle electrostatic interactions on the physicochemical properties of aging hectorite clay dispersions. The structure of the dispersion medium is modified either by incorporating dissociating/non-dissociating kosmotropic (structure-inducing) or chaotropic (structure-disrupting) molecules or by changing dispersion temperature. Photon correlation spectroscopy, rheological measurements and particle-scale imaging are employed to evaluate the physicochemical properties of the dispersions. Our experiments involving incorporation of external additives demonstrate a strong influence of dispersion medium structure on the dispersion properties when the interparticle electrostatic interactions are weak. We introduce a new temperature dependent measurement protocol, wherein the temperature of the medium is fixed before adding the clay particles, to manipulate the hydrogen bonds in the aqueous medium in the absence of external additives. Accelerated aging, observed upon raising the temperature regardless of the experimental thermal histories, is attributed to increased interparticle electrostatic interactions as in the room temperature experiments with ionic additives. Our study identifies that in the presence of weak interparticle electrostatic interactions, changes in the physicochemical properties of charged clay dispersions can be driven by manipulating hydrogen bond populations in aqueous medium.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chandeshwar Misra
- Soft Condensed Matter Group, Raman Research Institute, C. V. Raman Avenue, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore 560 080, India.
| | - Venketesh T Ranganathan
- Soft Condensed Matter Group, Raman Research Institute, C. V. Raman Avenue, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore 560 080, India.
| | - Ranjini Bandyopadhyay
- Soft Condensed Matter Group, Raman Research Institute, C. V. Raman Avenue, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore 560 080, India.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael P. Allen
- Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
- H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, Royal Fort, Bristol, UK
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Saha D, Bandyopadhyay R, Joshi YM. Dynamic light scattering study and DLVO analysis of physicochemical interactions in colloidal suspensions of charged disks. LANGMUIR : THE ACS JOURNAL OF SURFACES AND COLLOIDS 2015; 31:3012-3020. [PMID: 25726709 DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.5b00291] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
The interparticle interactions in colloidal suspensions of charged disks of Laponite clay in water were investigated using dynamic light scattering (DLS) and Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek (DLVO) theory. We studied the effects of clay concentration (C(L)), the concentration of externally added salt (C(S)), and temperature (T) on the microscopic dynamics of the clay suspensions. The fast (τ1) and mean slow relaxation times (⟨τ(ww)⟩) of Laponite suspensions were extracted from intensity autocorrelation functions measured at different waiting times (t(w)) after sample preparation. Comprehensive Laponite concentration-salt concentration-temperature-time superpositions of both the microscopic diffusive time scales and the stretching exponent corresponding to the slow relaxation process highlight the self-similar nature of the energy landscapes of the Laponite suspensions. The evolution of the sodium ion concentration in the aging suspension with tw, measured for several values of CL, CS, and T, was used in a DLVO analysis of the free energy of the suspension for two charged disks parallely approaching one another. This analysis confirms that, in addition to repulsive interparticle interactions, attractive interactions also play a pivotal role in the microscopic dynamics of spontaneously evolving Laponite suspensions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Debasish Saha
- †Soft Condensed Matter Group, Raman Research Institute, C. V. Raman Avenue, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore 560 080, India
| | - Ranjini Bandyopadhyay
- †Soft Condensed Matter Group, Raman Research Institute, C. V. Raman Avenue, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore 560 080, India
| | - Yogesh M Joshi
- ‡Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208 016, India
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Bailey L, Lekkerkerker HNW, Maitland GC. Smectite clay--inorganic nanoparticle mixed suspensions: phase behaviour and rheology. SOFT MATTER 2015; 11:222-36. [PMID: 25435312 DOI: 10.1039/c4sm01717j] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/24/2023]
Abstract
Smectite clay minerals and their suspensions have long been of both great scientific and applications interest and continue to display a remarkable range of new and interesting behaviour. Recently there has been an increasing interest in the properties of mixed suspensions of such clays with nanoparticles of different size, shape and charge. This review aims to summarize the current status of research in this area focusing on phase behaviour and rheological properties. We will emphasize the rich range of data that has emerged for these systems and the challenges they present for future investigations. The review starts with a brief overview of the behaviour and current understanding of pure smectite clays and their suspensions. We then cover the work on smectite clay-inorganic nanoparticle mixed suspensions according to the shape and charge of the nanoparticles - spheres, rods and plates either positively or negatively charged. We conclude with a summary of the overarching trends that emerge from these studies and indicate where gaps in our understanding need further research for better understanding the underlying chemistry and physics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louise Bailey
- Schlumberger Gould Research, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0EL, UK.
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