Kinetics of Crystallization and Gelation in Colloidal Suspensions

The competition between crystallization and gelation in colloidal suspensions is addressed as arising from three underlying processes at the particle level, viz., aggregation, dissociation, and rearrangement. Particles aggregate via Brownian encounters into clusters that have open structures. Subsequently, these particles rearrange into crystalline configurations to minimize their free energies. Simultaneously, bound particles can dissociate due to thermal motion. When particle rearrangement is rapid compared to the net rate of particle aggregation, crystalline clusters result. When rearrangement is slower, amorphous aggregates leading to gels result. With knowledge of particle aggregation, dissociation, and rearrangement processes, regions on colloidal phase diagrams where crystals occur are delineated from regions where gels result. Comparisons with recent experiments on globular protein suspensions are in excellent agreement suggesting that the model captures the underlying physics of the competition between gelation and crystallization. By establishing links between tunable interaction parameters and the resulting gelation and crystallization transitions, the present approach provides design rules for the control of colloidal phase transitions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Chemical Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Dixit, Narendra Madhukar

Contributors dc:contributor

• Zukoski, Charles F.

• Engineering, Chemical

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3069986

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82339