纳米TiO2颗粒对电流变悬浮液中硅油的挥发增强效应

物理化学性能稳定的二甲基硅油常作为电流变液分散相, 当与纳米量级的介电颗粒混合组成电流变悬浮液时, 在非密闭环境下极易挥发, 时间足够长时, 可完全挥发. 本文通过实验研究了纳米二氧化钛颗粒对二氧化钛和硅油组成的悬浮液中硅油挥发增强现象, 分析表明, 纳米颗粒在电流变悬浮液的硅油气-液界面上形成纳米尺度的凸型曲面, 使液面上蒸气压大大提高, 导致挥发增强. 本文还对颗粒浓度, 环境温度和硅油黏度等对硅油挥发增强效应的影响进行了系统的研究和分析.

Evaporation enhancement effect of TiO2 nanoparticles on silicone oil in electrorheological fluid suspension

Electrorheological (ER) fluids are suspensions which consist of dielectric particles and insulation fluid. The ER fluids can change from liquid-like to solid-like state under the applied electric field. For traditional ER fluids, the maximum yield/shear stress is only several kPa and the size of dielectric particles is generally of micron. Since 2003, a series of new type ER fluids have been discovered, of which the yield/shear stress is as high as several hundred kPa. Such a type of ER fluid is called giant ER fluid or polar molecule-dominated ER fluid (PM-ER fluid), in which the size of dispersed particles is of nanoscale. Dimethyl silicone oil is the most commonly used dispersing agent in ER fluids, because of its stable physical and chemical behaviors. There is no obvious evaporation in traditional ER fluids when it is mixed with micron grade particles. However, when it is mixed with nanoparticles to prepare giant ER fluids, the silicone oil volatilizes easily in atmosphere. If time is long enough, the silicone oil in ER suspension can even be evaporated completely. In this paper, the existence of TiO₂ nanoparticles in ER suspensions enhances the volatilization phenomenon has been studied through experiment. Analysis shows that the nanoparticles caused convex nanoscale curved surfaces on the gas-solid interface makes the vapor pressure increase greatly at the silicone oil surface, and leads to the enhancement of its volatilization. Influence of particle concentration, environmental temperature and viscosity of silicone oil on the evaporation enhancement effect is also studied and analysed systematically. Results show that the increase of the fraction of nanoparticles, viscosity of silicone oil as well as the temperature would promote the effect of evaporation enhancement of silicone oil in the suspensions.