A new look at effective interactions between microgel particles

Maxime J. Bergman, Nicoletta Gnan, Marc Obiols-Rabasa, Janne-Mieke Meijer, Lorenzo Rovigatti, Emanuela Zaccarelli () and Peter Schurtenberger ()
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Maxime J. Bergman: Lund University
Nicoletta Gnan: Sapienza University of Rome
Marc Obiols-Rabasa: Lund University
Janne-Mieke Meijer: Lund University
Lorenzo Rovigatti: Sapienza University of Rome
Emanuela Zaccarelli: Sapienza University of Rome
Peter Schurtenberger: Lund University

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Thermoresponsive microgels find widespread use as colloidal model systems, because their temperature-dependent size allows facile tuning of their volume fraction in situ. However, an interaction potential unifying their behavior across the entire phase diagram is sorely lacking. Here we investigate microgel suspensions in the fluid regime at different volume fractions and temperatures, and in the presence of another population of small microgels, combining confocal microscopy experiments and numerical simulations. We find that effective interactions between microgels are clearly temperature dependent. In addition, microgel mixtures possess an enhanced stability compared to hard colloid mixtures - a property not predicted by a simple Hertzian model. Based on numerical calculations we propose a multi-Hertzian model, which reproduces the experimental behavior for all studied conditions. Our findings highlight that effective interactions between microgels are much more complex than usually assumed, displaying a crucial dependence on temperature and on the internal core-corona architecture of the particles.

Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-07332-5

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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07332-5

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