Universal Kinetics of the Sol-to-Gel Transition
Abstract
A comprehensive theory encompassing the kinetics of sol-to-gel transition is yet to be formulated due to break-down of the mean-field Smoluchowski Equation. Using high temporal-resolution Monte Carlo simulation of irreversible aggregation systems, we show that this transition has three distinct regimes with kinetic exponent z ranging between 1 and 2, corresponding to aggregation of sol clusters proceeding to the ideal gel point (IGP); z ranging between 2 and 5.7 for gelation of sol clusters beyond IGP; and z ranging between 2 and 3.5 for a hitherto unidentified regime involving aggregation of gels when monomer-dense. We further establish universal power-law scaling relationships that connect the kinetics of these three regimes.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1811.00711,
title = {Universal Kinetics of the Sol-to-Gel Transition},
author = {Pai Liu and William R. Heinson and Christopher M. Sorensen and Rajan K. Chakrabarty},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.00711},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
16 pages, 4 figures, (additional 9 pages, 3 figures supplementary information)