Related papers: Controlled gel expansion through colloid oscillati…
Colloid-polymer mixtures may undergo either fluid-fluid phase separation or gelation. This depends on the depth of the quench (polymer concentration) and polymer-colloid size ratio. We present a real-space study of dynamics in phase…
We present an analytical model for the frequency response of a gas microbubble oscillating near a spherical inclusion of arbitrary size and mechanical nature (rigid, fluid, or viscoelastic) immersed in a viscous compressible fluid. The…
Wall adhesion effects during batch sedimentation of strongly flocculated colloidal gels are commonly assumed to be negligible. In this study in-situ measurements of colloidal gel rheology and solids volume fraction distribution suggest the…
Living organisms have mastered the dynamic control of internal stresses to perform an array of functions, such as change shape and locomote. State-of-the-art attempts to replicate this ability in synthetic materials are rudimentary in…
We study a two-component model for gelation consisting of $f$-functional monomers (the gel) and inert particles (the solvent). After equilibration as a simple liquid, the gel particles are gradually crosslinked to each other until the…
We investigate the linear viscoelasticity of polymer gels produced by the dispersion of gluten proteins in water:ethanol binary mixtures with various ethanol contents, from pure water to 60% v/v ethanol. We show that the complex…
We use a nanofluidic system to investigate the emergence of thermally driven collective phenomena along a single polymer chain. In our approach, a single DNA molecule is confined in a nanofluidic slit etched with arrays of embedded…
In this thesis the formation and properties of a polymer gel on and at a surface are investigated. The gel under investigation is defined as a three-dimensional network of "phantom" macromolecules that form permanent links with one another…
We derive an upscaled model describing the aggregation and deposition of colloidal particles within a porous medium allowing for the possibility of local clogging of the pores. At the level of the pore scale, we extend an existing model for…
We investigate with numerical simulations the molecular origin of viscosity in melts of flexible and semiflexible oligomer rings in comparison to corresponding systems with linear chains. The strong increase of viscosity with ring stiffness…
Colloidal gels have strong industrial relevance as they can behave liquid- and solid-like. The latter allows them to support the buoyant weight against gravity. However, the system is intrinsically out-of-equilibrium, which means that the…
We study the formation of a colloidal gel by means of Molecular Dynamics simulations of a model for colloidal suspensions. A slowing down with gel-like features is observed at low temperatures and low volume fractions, due to the formation…
We report a numerical study addressing the dynamics of compound vesicles confined in a channel under shear flow. The system comprises a smaller vesicle embedded within a larger one and can be used to mimic, for example, leukocytes or…
A numerical method is presented for first-principle simulations of charged colloidal dispersions in electrolyte solutions. Utilizing a smoothed profile for colloid-solvent boundaries, efficient mesoscopic simulations are enabled for…
We study the pressure-driven flow of concentrated colloids confined in glass micro-channels at the single particle level using fast confocal microscopy. For channel to particle size ratios $a/\bar{D} \lesssim 30$, the flow rate of the…
Colloidal gels constitute an important class of materials found in many contexts and with a wide range of applications. Yet as matter far from equilibrium, gels exhibit a variety of time-dependent behaviours, which can be perplexing, such…
We study a reaction-diffusion model posed on two distinct spatial scales that accounts for diffusion, aggregation, fragmentation, and deposition of populations of colloidal particles within a porous material. In this model, the macroscopic…
The liquid-liquid phase separation of a binary solvent can be arrested by colloidal particles trapped at the interface [K. Stratford et al., Science 309, 5744 (2005)]. We show experimentally that the colloidal network so formed can remain…
The settling of colloidal particles with short-ranged attractions is investigated via highly resolved immersed boundary simulations. At modest volume fractions, we show that inter-colloid attractions lead to clustering that reduces the…
Various dispersions of attractive particles are known to aggregate into patterns of vorticity-aligned stripes when sheared in confined geometries. We report a thorough experimental investigation of such shear-induced vorticity alignment…