https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2007-10269-1
Regular Article
Particle tracking to reveal gelation of hectorite dispersions
Sector of Biological and Soft Systems, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue, CB3 0HE, Cambridge, UK
* e-mail: amd3@cam.ac.uk
Received:
19
May
2007
Accepted:
11
January
2008
Published online:
12
March
2008
Passive microrheological techniques using particle tracking have been developed for the study of the gelation of hectorite suspensions. By following the Brownian motion of the particles, it is possible to determine the increasing caging of the particles with time, as the system gels. Since only the Brownian motion is followed, the gelation process itself should not be affected by the measurement. As gelation proceeds the increasing heterogeneity of the particle environments can be monitored by a variety of measures, including kurtosis. An effective viscosity can be extracted from the measurements and used to indicate the gelation process.
PACS: 83.80.Hj Suspensions, dispersions, pastes, slurries, colloids – / 47.57.Qk Rheological aspects – / 61.20.-p Structure of liquids –
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag, 2008
