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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Controlled Synthesis and Fluorescence Tracking of Highly Uniform Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) Microgels
Published on: September 8, 2016
Reversible gels of patchy particles: role of the valence
John Russo1, Piero Tartaglia, Francesco Sciortino
1Dipartimento di Fisica and INFM-CNR-SOFT, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Piazzale A. Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy. john.russo@roma1.infn.it
Abstract:
We simulate a binary mixture of colloidal patchy particles with two and three patches, respectively, for several relative concentrations and hence relative average valences. For these limited-valence systems, it is possible to reach low temperatures, where the lifetime of the patch-patch interactions becomes longer than the observation time without encountering phase separation in a colloid-poor (gas) and a colloid rich (liquid) phase. The resulting arrested state is a fully connected long-lived network where particles with three patches provide the branching points connecting chains of two-patch particles. We investigate the effect of the valence on the structural and dynamic properties of the resulting gel and attempt to provide a theoretical description of the formation and of the resulting gel structure based on a combination of the Wertheim theory for associated liquids and the Flory-Stockmayer approach for modeling chemical gelation.
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