Abstract: Sedimentation of Discotic Colloids (2010 Annual Meeting)

Monday, November 8, 2010: 2:15 PM

Grand Ballroom A (Hilton)

Zhengdong Cheng¹, Peng He¹, Andres F. Mejia¹, Ya-Wen Chang¹, Dazhi Sun², Hung-Jue Sue³, Dean S. Dinair⁴, Manuel Marquez⁵ and Ignacio Loscertales⁵, (1)Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, (2)Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, (3)Department of Mechanical Engineering and Polymer Technology Center, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, (4)LUM Corporation, Boulder, CO, (5)YNano LLC (Midlothian, VA, USA) and Universidad de Malaga (Malaga, Spain), Midlothian, VA

Colloids with the shape of a disk or plate are the building block of many natural materials. Our lab has discovered ways to control the size, thickness and polydispersity of discotic colloids. We will talk about the first measurement of the hindrance function for sedimentation or creaming of discotic colloids via the analytical centrifugation. Disks align with the external flow right above a volume fraction of a few percent, and this effect is extremely sensitive to the aspect ratio of disks. Due to this alignment effect, disk sedimentation or creaming demonstrates distinct trends in dilute and semidilute regions.

Extended Abstract: File Not Uploaded

See more of this Session: In Honor of William B. Russel: Colloidal Hydrodynamics I
See more of this Group/Topical: Engineering Sciences and Fundamentals