Related papers: Structural and dynamical properties of gel network…
The nonlinear rheological properties of dense suspensions are discussed within simplified models, suggested by a recent first principles approach to the model of Brownian particles in a constant-velocity-gradient solvent flow. Shear…
We introduce a simple model, a binary mixture of patchy particles, which has been designed to form a gel upon heating. Due to the specific nature of the particle interactions, notably the number and geometry of the patches as well as their…
Multicomponent gel systems have garnered much interest due to their compelling mechanical properties in the past decade. Yet, some mechanisms associated with multicomponent gels, such as sequential gelation, have been explored primarily in…
Our lives are surrounded by a rich assortment of disordered materials. In particular, glasses are well known as dense, amorphous materials, whereas gels exist in low-density, disordered states. Recent progress has provided a significant…
The aggregation of attractive colloids has been extensively studied from both theoretical and experimental perspectives as the fraction of solid particles is changed, and the range, type and strength of attractive or repulsive forces…
Colloidal gels formed by strongly attractive particles at low particle volume fractions are composed of space-spanning networks of uniformly sized clusters. We study the thermal fluctuations of the clusters using differential dynamic…
Patchy colloidal model with three and four equivalent patches, confined in the attractive random porous media, undergo re-entrant gas-liquid phase separation with the possibility for the liquid phase density to approach zero. This unusual…
Interactions between colloidal particles have hitherto usually been fixed by the suspension composition. Recent experimental developments now enable the control of interactions \emph{in-situ}. Here we use Brownian dynamics simulations to…
Colloidal gels are prime examples of functional materials exhibiting disordered, amorphous, yet meta-stable forms. They maintain stability through short-range attractive forces and their material properties are tunable by external forces.…
We investigate the thermodynamics and percolation regimes of model binary mixtures of patchy colloidal particles. The particles of each species have three sites of two types, one of which promotes bonding of particles of the same species…
We consider the sedimentation of a colloidal gel under confinement in the direction of gravity. The confinement allows us to compare directly experiments and computer simulations, for the same system size in the vertical direction. The…
Concentrated colloidal suspensions are a well-tested model system which has a glass transition. Colloids are suspensions of small solid particles in a liquid, and exhibit glassy behavior when the particle concentration is high; the…
Metastable gels formed by weakly attractive colloidal particles display a distinctive two-stage time-dependent settling behavior under their own weight. Initially a space-spanning network is formed that for a characteristic time, which we…
Liquid water, besides being fundamental for life on Earth, has long fascinated scientists due to several anomalies. Different hypotheses have been put forward to explain these peculiarities. The most accredited one foresees the presence in…
We report, for the first time, some experimental observations regarding a new type of long range interaction between rigid particles that prevails when they are suspended in an soft elastic gel. A denser particle submerges itself to a…
Many microorganisms swim through gels, materials with nonzero zero-frequency elastic shear modulus, such as mucus. Biological gels are typically heterogeneous, containing both a structural scaffold (network) and a fluid solvent. We analyze…
We analyse the dynamics of different routes to collapse of a constrained polyelectrolyte gel in contact with an ionic bath. The evolution of the gel is described by a model that incorporates non-linear elasticity, Stefan-Maxwell diffusion…
The macroscopic mechanical properties of colloidal particle gels strongly depend on the local arrangement of the powder particles. Experiments have shown that more heterogeneous microstructures exhibit up to one order of magnitude higher…
When an ensemble of particles interact hydrodynamically, they generically display large-scale transient structures such as swirls in sedimenting particles [1], or colloidal strings in sheared suspensions [2]. Understanding these…
We discuss a class of models for particulate gels in which the particle contacts are described by an effective interaction combining a two-body attraction and a three-body angular repulsion. Using molecular dynamics, we show how varying the…