Title: Reversible gels of patchy particles: Role of the valence
Abstract: We simulate a binary mixture of colloidal patchy particles with two and three patches, respectively, for several relative concentrations and hence relative average valences. For these limited-valence systems, it is possible to reach low temperatures, where the lifetime of the patch-patch interactions becomes longer than the observation time without encountering phase separation in a colloid-poor (gas) and a colloid rich (liquid) phase. The resulting arrested state is a fully connected long-lived network where particles with three patches provide the branching points connecting chains of two-patch particles. We investigate the effect of the valence on the structural and dynamic properties of the resulting gel and attempt to provide a theoretical description of the formation and of the resulting gel structure based on a combination of the Wertheim theory for associated liquids and the Flory–Stockmayer approach for modeling chemical gelation.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-07-02
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref', 'pubmed']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 163
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