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Updated: Oct 2, 2026

Confocal Imaging of Confined Quiescent and Flowing Colloid-polymer Mixtures
Published on: May 20, 2014
Viscosity and transient electric birefringence study of clay colloidal aggregation
Audun Bakk1, Jon O Fossum, Geraldo J da Silva
1Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway. Audun.Bakk@phys.ntnu.no
Abstract:
We study a synthetic clay suspension of laponite at different particle and NaCl concentrations by measuring stationary shear viscosity and transient electrically induced birefringence (TEB). On one hand the viscosity data are consistent with the particles being spheres and the particles being associated with large amount bound water. On the other hand the viscosity data are also consistent with the particles being asymmetric, consistent with single laponite platelets associated with a very few monolayers of water. We analyze the TEB data by employing two different models of aggregate size (effective hydrodynamic radius) distribution: (1) bidisperse model and (2) log-normal distributed model. Both models fit, in the same manner, fairly well to the experimental TEB data and they indicate that the suspension consists of polydisperse particles. The models also appear to confirm that the aggregates increase in size vs increasing ionic strength. The smallest particles at low salt concentrations seem to be monomers and oligomers.
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