Viscosity of concentrated colloidal suspensions: comparison of bidisperse models

In this paper, recent advances in the study of rheological behavior of concentrated bimodal suspensions are briefly reviewed. The predictive models are divided into two categories, namely, the effective volume fraction (or hard sphere scaling) approach and the separation of contributions approach. Predictions of both approaches are compared with experimental data of electrostatically and sterically stabilized suspensions. It is shown that the predictions of both hard sphere scaling and the scaling method of Zaman and Moudgil (J. Colloid Interface Sci. 212 (1999) 167) to separate the contributions of fine and coarse particles are in good agreement with the experimentally observed results. The approach by Dames, Morrison, Wilenbacher (Rheol. Acta 40 (2001) 434) to separate the hard-sphere and non-hard-sphere contributions is investigated using the aqueous silica and polystyrene suspensions respectively. A good agreement is shown for aqueous silica suspensions. However, significant differences between the predictions and experimental data are found for the sterically stabilized polystyrene suspensions, suggesting a more generalized expression is needed. As an attempt to classify the models on the viscosity of colloidal suspensions, the present study will provide guidelines for interpretation of experimental results and for the development of more comprehensive predictive methodologies for polydispersed colloidal dispersions.