Modelling of colloidal dynamics in complex soft matter systems
type: CreativeWork
description: This dissertation, divided into three parts and funded by the multinational company Synthomer LTD, is devoted to the modelling of the complex dynamics among colloidal particles in soft matter systems which are influenced by the interplay between Brownian motion, the common denominator among all the projects, and other phenomena such as inter-particle interactions and external fields. Since the Brownian motion and its interplay with shear flow and physico-chemical interactions has a clear impact on the spatial arrangement, also called microstructure, of a colloidal suspension the first part of the thesis focuses on the proposal of a new theoretical framework which analyses the aforementioned feature of diverse dispersions under strongly sheared conditions by analytically solving the 2-Body Smoluchowski equation. The obtained solution is an extension of already existing theories and it is able to recover previous results for hard-spheres fluids under semi-dilute conditions. The new framework has also unveiled a new rich physical behavior by studying the microstructure of two paradigmatic cases of physically relevant interactions, the attractive Lennard-Jones potential and the Debye-Hückel or Yukawa potential for charge-stabilized particles. The Brownian motion is also crucial in determining the aggregation behavior of colloidal particles: the mechanism proposed by Smoluchowski to study the collision rate between Brownian particles and a stationary one is used nowadays to describe the entry and exit of radicals during an emulsion polymerization. The second part of the thesis is then dedicated to the development of a mathematical model which, by using the pseudo-homopolymerization approach, describes the kinetics of this polymerization mode. By using the state-of-the-art models for radical entry and desorption the framework has the ultimate goal of predicting crucial kinetic variables such as the monomers conversions and latex composition throughout the process. The mod…
abstract: This dissertation, divided into three parts and funded by the multinational company Synthomer LTD, is devoted to the modelling of the complex dynamics among colloidal particles in soft matter systems which are influenced by the interplay between Brownian motion, the common denominator among all the projects, and other phenomena such as inter-particle interactions and external fields. Since the Brownian motion and its interplay with shear flow and physico-chemical interactions has a clear impact on the spatial arrangement, also called microstructure, of a colloidal suspension the first part of the thesis focuses on the proposal of a new theoretical framework which analyses the aforementioned feature of diverse dispersions under strongly sheared conditions by analytically solving the 2-Body Smoluchowski equation. The obtained solution is an extension of already existing theories and it is able to recover previous results for hard-spheres fluids under semi-dilute conditions. The new framework has also unveiled a new rich physical behavior by studying the microstructure of two paradigmatic cases of physically relevant interactions, the attractive Lennard-Jones potential and the Debye-Hückel or Yukawa potential for charge-stabilized particles. The Brownian motion is also crucial in determining the aggregation behavior of colloidal particles: the mechanism proposed by Smoluchowski to study the collision rate between Brownian particles and a stationary one is used nowadays to describe the entry and exit of radicals during an emulsion polymerization. The second part of the thesis is then dedicated to the development of a mathematical model which, by using the pseudo-homopolymerization approach, describes the kinetics of this polymerization mode. By using the state-of-the-art models for radical entry and desorption the framework has the ultimate goal of predicting crucial kinetic variables such as the monomers conversions and latex composition throughout the process. The mod…
author: Banetta, Luca
language: eng
keywords: Polymer chemistry, Fluid Mechanics, Polymer reaction Engineering, Colloids
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/0d6843ac-ef08-468f-bb72-ea1ad6f951ce/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2020-08-03
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:31Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.62055