Phase ripening in particulate binary polymer blends

Particulate polymer‐in‐polymer mezodispersions show a pronounced increase in the size of the dispersed particles during melt‐phase annealing. Three ripening mechanisms have been proposed: Brownian coalescence, Ostwald ripening, and hydrodynamic coarsening. The modified Cahn–Hilliard equation predicts growth by Ostwald ripening and diffusion‐induced coalescence. Simulations of this mechanism show a self‐similar particle size distribution, but the distribution broadens with the increasing volume fraction of the minor phase. Hydrodynamic coarsening caused by concentration gradients and random Brownian forces has been simulated according to the hydrodynamic model. The simulations show that concentration‐driven hydrodynamics have little effect on the particle size distribution. Experiments have been performed to investigate the relative importance of these ripening mechanisms for polybutadiene in a polystyrene system. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 603–612, 2004     

Mechanism of silver particle formation during photoreduction using in situ time-resolved SAXS analysis

Formation mechanisms of silver (Ag) particles in an aqueous ethanol solution of poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) (PVP) by the photoreduction of AgClO(4) were investigated by means of in situ small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements. The kinetics of association process (nucleation, growth, and coalescence) of Ag(0) atoms to produce Ag particles was successfully revealed by the quantitative SAXS analysis for the number-average of radius (R(0)), number of particles (n(Ag)), reduced standard deviation (σ(R)/R(0)), and volume fraction (?(Ag)) of Ag particles produced by the photoreduction. The rate of nucleation and growth process during Ag particle formation strongly depend on the initial metal concentration. The time evolution of radius and number of Ag particles indicates that a mechanism of Ag particle formation is composed of different three processes, that is, reduction-nucleation, Ostwald ripening, and particle coalescence. In a rapid reduction-nucleation process, small nuclei or particles (average radius ～2.5 nm) are produced by an autocatalytic reduction. After the formation of small nuclei or particles proceeds, Ostwald ripening and particle coalescence, predicted by the Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner theory (LSW theory), subsequently occur, resulting in the particle growth (average radius ～11.5 nm).     

Spontaneously formed trans-anethol/water/alcohol emulsions: mechanism of formation and stability

We studied the spontaneous emulsification and droplet growth mechanism in trans-anethol/water/ethanol solutions, also known as the beverage ouzo, using dynamic light scattering spectroscopy. This simple ternary mixture is a generic example of a system that forms microemulsions spontaneously when brought into the two-phase region. The volume fraction of the dispersed phase was found to profoundly affect the growth rates of the droplets, which is a new finding that has not been predicted by the Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner theory. Time-dependent measurements show that the droplet growth is governed by Ostwald ripening (OR), and no coalescence was observed. Furthermore, the OR rates increase with increasing oil concentration at low alcohol content. We attribute this behavior to enhanced droplet-droplet interactions. At high ethanol concentrations, we found that the measured rates decreased as the oil concentration increased. The OR growth mechanism completely correlates with changes in droplet size. The kinetics of droplet growth shows that the ripening has a saturation limit at a droplet radius of about 1.5 mum. Thus, formed emulsions remain stable for months.     

Temperature induced formation of particle coated non-spherical droplets

Herein we offer a simple method to produce non-spherical emulsion droplets stabilized by freshly formed Mg(OH)(2) nanoparticles (MPs). The non-spherical degree of droplets as a function of experiment conditions was investiged and the origins of the presence of non-spherical droplets were discussed. The results of optical microscope images show that stable spherical droplets can be fused into non-spherical at given aging temperature. It is also recognized that particle concentration, oil/water ratio and aging time significantly affect droplet fusion and excess particles that are not adsorbed on the oil/water interface are helpful in restraining droplet fusion. Based on the TEM, XRD and Fluorescence confocal microscopy results, the origins of droplet fusion are inferred from the presence of vacant holes in the particle layer. Because of Oswald ripening, particles on droplet surfaces grow larger than the freshly precipitated ones under a given aging temperature. The growth of particles results in the reduction of total cover area of particle layer and thus creates vacant holes in the particle layer which would cause partial coalescence of droplets once they collide. Thus, these findings can offer a simple alternative to obtain a large amount of non-spherical emulsion droplets but also can help the preparation of non-spherical colloid particles.     

Soft- and hard-agglomerate aerosols made at high temperatures

Criteria for aerosol synthesis of soft-agglomerate, hard-agglomerate, or even nonagglomerate particles are developed on the basis of particle sintering and coalescence. Agglomerate (or aggregate) particles are held together by weak, physical van der Waals forces (soft agglomerates) or by stronger chemical or sintering bonds (hard agglomerates). Accounting for simultaneous gas phase chemical reaction, coagulation, and sintering during the formation and growth of silica (SiO2) nanoparticles by silicon tetrachloride (SiCl4) oxidation and neglecting the spread of particle size distribution, the onset of hard-agglomerate formation is identified at the end of full coalescence, while the onset of soft-agglomerate formation is identified at the end of sintering. Process conditions such as the precursor initial volume fraction, maximum temperature, residence time, and cooling rate are explored, identifying regions for the synthesis of particles with a controlled degree of agglomeration (ratio of collision to primary particle diameters).     

Silica particle-stabilized emulsions of silicone oil and water: aspects of emulsification

A study of the emulsification of silicone oil and water in the presence of partially hydrophobic, monodisperse silica nanoparticles is described. Emulsification involves the fragmentation of bulk liquids and the resulting large drops and the coalescence of some of those drops. The influence of particle concentration, oil/water ratio, and emulsification time on the relative extents of fragmentation and coalescence during the formation of emulsions, prepared using either batch or continuous methods, has been investigated. For batch emulsions, the average drop diameter decreases with increasing particle concentration as the extent of limited coalescence is reduced. Increasing the oil volume fraction in the emulsion at fixed aqueous particle concentration results in an increase in the average drop diameter together with a dramatic lowering of the uniformity of the drop size distribution as coalescence becomes increasingly significant until catastrophic phase inversion occurs. For low oil volume fractions (phi(o)), fragmentation dominates during emulsification since the mean drop size decreases with emulsification time. For higher phi(o) close to conditions of phase inversion, coalescence becomes more prevalent and the drop size increases with time with stable multiple emulsions forming as a result.     

Exclusion of impurity particles during grain growth in charged colloidal crystals

We examine the spatial distribution of fluorescent-labeled charged polystyrene (PS) particles (particle volume fraction ? = 0.0001 and 0.001, diameter d = 183 and 333 nm) added to colloidal crystals of charged silica particles (? = ?(s) = 0.035-0.05, d = 118 nm). At ?(s) = 0.05, the PS particles were almost randomly distributed in the volume-filling polycrystal structures before the grain growth process. Time-resolved confocal laser scanning microscopy observations reveal that the PS particles are swept to the grain boundaries of the colloidal silica crystals owing to grain boundary migration. PS particles with d = 2420 nm are not excluded from the silica crystals. We also examine influences of the impurities on the grain growth laws, such as the power law growth, size distribution, and existence of a time-independent distribution function of the scaled grain size.     

Electrophoresis and electric conduction in a salt-free suspension of charged particles

The electrophoresis and electric conduction of a suspension of charged spherical particles in a salt-free solution are analyzed by using a unit cell model. The linearized Poisson-Boltzmann equation (valid for the cases of relatively low surface charge density or high volume fraction of the particles) and Laplace equation are solved for the equilibrium electric potential profile and its perturbation caused by the imposed electric field, respectively, in the fluid containing the counterions only around the particle, and the ionic continuity equation and modified Stokes equations are solved for the electrochemical potential energy and fluid flow fields, respectively. Explicit analytical formulas for the electrophoretic mobility of the particles and effective electric conductivity of the suspension are obtained, and the particle interaction effects on these transport properties are significant and interesting. The scaled zeta potential, electrophoretic mobility, and effective electric conductivity increase monotonically with an increase in the scaled surface charge density of the particles and in general decrease with an increase in the particle volume fraction, keeping each other parameter unchanged. Under the Debye-Hückel approximation, the dependence of the electrophoretic mobility normalized with the surface charge density on the ratio of the particle radius to the Debye screening length and particle volume fraction in a salt-free suspension is same as that in a salt-containing suspension, but the variation of the effective electric conductivity with the particle volume fraction in a salt-free suspension is found to be quite different from that in a suspension containing added electrolyte.     

Ostwald ripening in immiscible polyolefin blends

The coarsening in the quiescent melt of the phase-segregated particles of a polymer blend, composed of a narrow molecular weight fraction of an unbranched high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and a highly branched (100 ethyl branches/1000 C atoms) hydrogenated polybutadiene (HPB) was studied. The system was effectively binary, due to the narrow molecular weight and composition distributions of each component. The system was composed of 90 wt % of the HDPE and 10 wt % of the HPB and it formed a two-phase system in the melt at 177°C. The blend was precipitated from xylene solution in order to obtain an initially intimately mixed system. This was the third study in a series of studies of the coarsening of phase-segregated particles in polymer blends. This study was unique in that the system studied was binary in this case while the previous systems were multicomponent. Since the present system was binary, exact thermodynamic calculations of the phase state of this system could be applied with a high level of confidence. The droplet phase particles, which were mainly composed of the HPB, were observed to coarsen on storage in the melt for times of from 5 s to 1 h. At the shortest storage time of 5 s the particles had an average radius of about 0.05 μm and coarsened to about 0.2 μm after 1 h storage in the melt state. Particle dimensions were measured by scanning electron microscopy of n-heptane-etched and gold-coated sections. It was found that the volume of the particles increased linearly with time and that the rate constant of coarsening was K_exp = 1.23 × 10^?18 cm³/s and this agreed fairly well with the rate constant calculated from Ostwald ripening theory of K_ce = 0.86 × 10^?18 cm³/s. In contrast the rate constant for direct particle diffusion and coalescence was K_c = 3.6 × 10^?20 cm³/s. Since this was two orders of magnitude smaller than the rate constant for Ostwald ripening, it was concluded that, although the linear increase of volume with time was also consistent with the particle diffusion and coalescence mechanism, this was not a significant contributor to the coarsening mechanism. The major cause for the insignificance of the particle diffusion and coalescence mechanism was the high melt viscosity of the matrix polymers. The application of the Ostwald ripening theory to this system could be made with a high level of confidence because it was binary. It was found that the phase concentration of the droplet phase apparently underwent a rapid increase during the first 1-2 min of storage in the melt, indicating that the system did not reach phase equilibrium (i.e., did not completely phase-segregate) for about 1-2 min. This further indicated that the long-time coarsening regime was not entered until after this length of time. The particle size distributions remained approximately self-similar over the period of coarsening, as predicted by Ostwald ripening theory. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The changes in particle charge distribution during rapid growth of particles in the plasma reactor

The changes in particle charging were investigated during the rapid growth of particles in the plasma reactor by the discrete-sectional model and the Gaussian charge distribution function. The particle size distribution becomes bimodal in the plasma reactor and most of the large particles are charged negatively, but some fractions of small particles are in a neutral state or even charged positively. As the particles accumulate in the plasma reactor, the amount of electrons absorbed onto the particles increases, while the electron concentration in the plasma decreases. As the mass generation rate of small particles (monomers) decreases or as the initial electron concentration increases, the electron concentration in the plasmas increases and the particle charge distribution is shifted in the negative direction and the fraction of particles charged negatively and the average number of electrons per particle increase. With the decrease in monomer diameter, the electron concentration decreases in the beginning of plasma discharge, but, later, increases. For high mass generation rate of monomers or for low initial electron concentration or for small monomer diameter, the fraction of particles in a neutral state increases and the particle size distribution becomes broader.     

Effect of Particle Size on Rate of Coalescence of Silica Nanoparticles

In high temperature processes, at high concentrations, aerosol particles grow by collisions and coalescence. The rate of coalescence is an important parameter for predicting the final primary particle size. For some materials, particularly silica, predictions of final primary particle size using coalescence rates based upon bulk material properties are not in agreement with experimental results. One explanation may be that the high internal pressure in very small particles (less than 10 nm in diameter) affects the mobility of material within the particles and hence the coalescence rate. In this Note, a new approach for estimating rates of coalescence of particles in the initial stages of growth is presented. Coalescence of liquid particles is assumed to be rate-limited by atomic mobility, and the effect of internal pressure on diffusivity is considered. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.     

On the relationship between band broadening and the particle-size distribution of the packing material in liquid chromatography: theory and practice

The influence of the particle size distribution (PSD) on the band broadening and the efficiency of packed columns is investigated on both theoretical and practical viewpoints. Each of the classical contributions to mass transfer kinetics, those due to longitudinal diffusion, eddy dispersion, and solid–liquid mass transfer resistance are measured and analyzed in terms of their expected and observed intensity as a function of the PSD of mixtures of the commercially available packing materials, 5 and 3 μm Luna-C₁₈(2) particles (Phenomenex, Torrance, CA, USA). Six 4.6 mm × 150 mm columns were packed with different mixtures of these two materials. The efficiencies of these columns were measured for a non-retained and a retained analytes in a mixture of acetonitrile and water. The longitudinal diffusion coefficient was directly measured by the peak parking method. The solid–liquid mass transfer coefficient was measured from the combination of the peak parking method, the best model of effective diffusion coefficient and the actual PSDs of the different particle mixtures measured by Coulter counter experiments. The eddy diffusion term was measured according to a recently developed protocol, by numerical integration of the peak profiles. Our results clearly show that the PSD has no measurable impact on any of the coefficients of the van Deemter equation. On the contrary and surprisingly, adding a small fraction of large particles to a batch of small particles can improve the quality of the packing of the fine particles. Our results indirectly confirm that the success of sub-3 μm shell particles is due to the roughness of their external surface, which contributes to eliminate most of the nefarious wall effects.     

Fractal analysis of the coalescence process of Au nano-meter particles dispersed in 2-propanol

The coalescence process of Au small particles (11 nm in radius) dispersed in 2-propanol is studied via fractal analysis. It was found that the particle network grows one-dimensionally at an initial stage and three-dimensionally in later stage accompanying with the increase of the size of a constituent particle. Ostwald ripening was found at the beginning of the growth process. The intensity of the absorption band at around 750 nm gradually increases in concurrence with the growth of particle network at the expense of the decrease of the intensity of 523 nm plasmon band of isolated particles.     

Startup of electrophoresis in a suspension of colloidal spheres

The transient electrophoretic response of a homogeneous suspension of spherical particles to the step application of an electric field is analyzed. The electric double layer encompassing each particle is assumed to be thin but finite, and the effect of dynamic electroosmosis within it is incorporated. The momentum equation for the fluid outside the double layers is solved through the use of a unit cell model. Closed‐form formulas for the time‐evolving electrophoretic and settling velocities of the particles in the Laplace transform are obtained in terms of the electrokinetic radius, relative mass density, and volume fraction of the particles. The time scale for the development of electrophoresis and sedimentation is significantly smaller for a suspension with a higher particle volume fraction or a smaller particle‐to‐fluid density ratio, and the electrophoretic mobility at any instant increases with an increase in the electrokinetic particle radius. The transient electrophoretic mobility is a decreasing function of the particle volume fraction if the particle‐to‐fluid density ratio is relatively small, but it may increase with an increase in the particle volume fraction if this density ratio is relatively large. The particle interaction effect in a suspension on the transient electrophoresis is much weaker than that on the transient sedimentation of the particles.     

莠灭净悬浮剂物理稳定性

通过颗粒平均粒径测定和形貌表征研究了分散剂种类和用量对莠灭净悬浮剂物理稳定性的影响。 结果表明,相同条件下,双子型分散剂马来松香聚氧丙烯-氧乙烯醚磺酸盐（SC-3）可以在农药颗粒表面形成双层吸附,产生双层屏蔽结构,有效阻隔了颗粒与水的接触,抑制了颗粒团聚和奥氏熟化引起的结晶长大。 其用量(质量分数)大于4.0%时,所制备的莠灭净悬浮剂热贮前后颗粒粒径及形貌基本不变,其结晶长大现象得到有效地抑制,体系物理稳定性较好。     

不同尺寸（0.02—0.5μm）单分散聚苯乙烯乳液微球的制备

通过对苯乙烯乳液聚合微观动力学以及聚合过程中胶粒直径及其分布随时间变化的理论分析,并通过实验验证,比较了不同乳化剂种类、不同反应温度和不同单体用量条件下,产物胶乳的粒径分布,发现乳液聚合最终产物的粒径分布与成核期长短没有直接联系,而是取决于自由基进入胶粒的速率常数、稳态增长时间、胶粒中的平均自由基数目和胶粒的体积增长速率,胶乳单分散性随这些参量的增大而提高,从而解释了采用高温、高引发剂浓度以及长时间反应的条件对最终的胶粒尺寸分布的影响。本文还通过实验,找到了在20～500nm范围内控制粒径大小及粒径分布的方法。在20～100nm的范围内,用一步法乳液聚合,通过改变单体用量和乳化剂浓度,制备了一系列粒径的单分散聚苯乙烯胶乳;在100～500nm的范围内,运用种子乳液聚合,通过改变溶胀单体与种子胶乳的用量比,也制得了不同粒径的单分散聚苯乙烯胶乳。     

Synergistic stabilization of emulsions by a mixture of surface-active nanoparticles and surfactant

The stability and rheology of tricaprylin oil-in-water emulsions containing a mixture of surface-active hydrophilic silica nanoparticles and pure nonionic surfactant molecules are reported and compared with those of emulsions stabilized by each emulsifier alone. The importance of the preparation protocol is highlighted. Addition of particles to a surfactant-stabilized emulsion results in the appearance of a small population of large drops due to coalescence, possibly by bridging of adsorbed particles. Addition of surfactant to a particle-stabilized emulsion surprisingly led to increased coalescence too, although the resistance to creaming increased mainly due to an increase in viscosity. Simultaneous emulsification of particles and surfactant led to synergistic stabilization at intermediate concentrations of surfactant; emulsions completely stable to both creaming and coalescence exist at low overall emulsifier concentration. Using the adsorption isotherm of surfactant on particles and the viscosity and optical density of aqueous particle dispersions, we show that the most stable emulsions are formed from dispersions of flocculated, partially hydrophobic particles. From equilibrium contact angle and oil-water interfacial tension measurements, the calculated free energy of adsorption E of a silica particle to the oil-water interface passes through a maximum with respect to surfactant concentration, in line with the emulsion stability optimum. This results from a competition between the influence of particle hydrophobicity and interfacial tension on the magnitude of E.     

Influence of hexadecane on the formation of droplets and growth of particles for methyl methacrylate miniemulsion polymerization

The evolution of monomer droplets and latex particles of methyl methacrylate miniemulsions, initiated by an oil‐phase initiator, stabilized by a cationic surfactant mixture, and costabilized by different amounts of hexadecane, was investigated. With an increasing hexadecane concentration, the ultrasonication time required for the miniemulsions to reach a critically stabilized state was reduced, and a unimodal size distribution of the droplets with a decreasing average diameter was obtained. For lower hexadecane concentrations, a bimodal size distribution of the latex particles, with a significant increase in the volume fraction of the smaller latex particles, was achieved after the polymerization. The enhanced growth of the volume fraction of the smaller latex particles came from both nucleation of the shrinking droplets due to Ostwald ripening and homogeneous and/or micellar nucleation, if micelles existed, triggered by radicals in the aqueous phase. For high hexadecane concentrations, Ostwald ripening was effectively retarded, and the miniemulsions were sufficiently stabilized against the degradation of molecular diffusion. The size distributions of the droplets and latex particles were almost identical. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 4603–4610, 2006     

Ligand effect on the growth and the digestion of Co nanocrystals

The reaction product of cobalt carbonyl decomposition depends on the concentration of the oleic acid ligand. With a low concentration of ligand, nanocrystals nucleate and grow to large ferromagnetic particles through the process of Ostwald ripening and coalescence coarsening. With a high concentration of ligand, stable cluster complexes are formed. Addition or removal of ligand from the reaction products can interchange the formation of cluster complexes and nanocrystals.