The Rheology of Weakly-Attracting Colloidal Particles at High Concentrations

Abstract

A central aim in dispersion rheology is to understand and quantify the effects of particle interactions on the bulk properties of concentrated colloidal dispersions. Progress towards this aim depends in part upon obtaining rheological data for model dispersions that are well-characterised enough for the particle interaction potentials to be estimated theoretically. Much of the recent work in this vein has been concerned with systems with purely repulsive interactions. Thus a fairly substantial body of data now exists concerning the shear viscosity and linear viscoelasticity of model systems for which the interactions can be regarded as hard sphere-like. There are also available data illustrating the effect of soft electrostatic repulsion on the elasticity and flow of ordered latex.