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Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Confocal Imaging of Confined Quiescent and Flowing Colloid-polymer Mixtures
Published on: May 20, 2014
A small-angle neutron scattering study of adsorbed polymer structure in concentrated colloidal dispersions
Dong Qiu1, Charlie Flood, Terence Cosgrove
1School of Physical Sciences, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NH, United Kingdom. D.Qui@kent.ac.uk
Abstract:
Poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) adsorption on colloidal silica particles was studied by small-angle neutron scattering under the core-contrast-matching condition. The volume fraction profile of the adsorbed layer was derived by modeling the average layer scattering term. It was found that, with increasing colloid concentration, the adsorbed PEO layers collapse due to the repulsions between adsorbed layers on neighboring particles. At the same time, the correlation length in the adsorbed layer obtained by fitting the layer fluctuation scattering term was found to decrease, indicating that denser polymer layers are formed. These two observations are self-consistent.
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