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Updated: Jan 26, 2026
Inkjet-printed Polyvinyl Alcohol Multilayers
Published on: May 11, 2017
Aggregation Behavior of Nano-Silica in Polyvinyl Alcohol/Polyacrylamide Hydrogels Based on Dissipative Particle
Qinghua Wei1,2, Yanen Wang3, Yingfeng Zhang4
1Department of Industry Engineering, College of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China. weiqinghua@mail.nwpu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Due to the aggregation behavior of nano-silica in aqueous solution, the use of nano-silica without surface modification for synthesizing hydrogels is still a challenging task. This paper presents our study on the use of dissipative particle dynamics simulations to discover the aggregation behavior of nano-silica in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/polyacrylamide (PAM) blended hydrogels. By simulations, we aimed at investigating the effects of such factors as nano-silica content, polymer component ratio, temperature and shear rate on the aggregation behavior of nano-silica in terms of the mesoscopic morphologies and the relative concentration distribution functions. Our results reveal that the dispersion of nano-silica is seen if the nano-silica content is increased to 1.5%, and the aggregation of nano-silica becomes noticeable in blended hydrogels with an increase in the nano-silica content. This finding agrees well with the experimental results obtained by means of scanning electron microscopy. Furthermore, it is also found that the dispersion of nano-silica becomes more uniform with an increase in PAM content, temperature and shear rate. These findings greatly enrich our understanding of the aggregation behavior of nano-silica in PVA/PAM blended hydrogels.
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