Aggregation of silica nanoparticles in concentrated suspensions under turbulent, shear and extensional flows

• The shear and extensional flows that compose the turbulent flow are studied.
• Three experimental devices were used: a reactor, a Couette cell and a Taylor cell.
• The evolution of viscosity and particle sizes during the aggregation were measured.
• The nature of the flow appear to have a great influence on the aggregation process.
• Different aggregate structures were suspected depending on the nature of the flow.

The production of nanoparticles in concentrated suspensions requires strict control of the stability of the systems which are strongly influenced by the physico-chemical properties and the hydrodynamic conditions they are placed in. This study deals with the analysis of the aggregation processes of a colloidal silica suspension destabilized by addition of salt under different flows: a turbulent flow performed in a stirred tank, a pure shear flow created thanks to a Couette geometry and an extensional flow obtained in a four-roll mill (Taylor cell). During the aggregation process, the silica suspensions behave as shear-thinning fluids and the variation of their apparent viscosity can be related to the evolution of the size distribution of the aggregates in the suspension. Pure shear and turbulent flows at an equivalent strain rate exhibit almost the same behaviour. The viscosity and the aggregate size decrease with the shear rate. On the contrary, the apparent viscosity and the aggregate size distributions were not very sensitive to a change of an extensional constraint within the considered range. Indeed, although aggregates obtained in the Taylor cell were bigger than in the Couette cell, the apparent viscosity was higher in the latter case. Different aggregate structures, characterized by their fractal dimension, were finally predicted depending on the hydrodynamic nature of the main flow under which they were produced.

This study investigates granulometric and rheological measurements in destabilized colloidal silica suspensions under different type of flows. The study discusses the effects of the hydrodynamic conditions (shear and extensional flows) on the evolution of the size of the aggregates and the viscosity of the suspensions. Fig.: Volumetric particle size distributions of the suspension at the end of the destabilisation process for the various hydrodynamic conditions experimented.Figure optionsDownload high-quality image (113 K)Download as PowerPoint slide