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Colloids

Colloids

Children at play often make suspensions such as mixtures of mud and water, flour and water, or a suspension of solid pigments in water known as tempera paint. These suspensions are heterogeneous mixtures composed of relatively large particles that are visible to the naked eye or can be seen with a magnifying glass. They are cloudy, and the suspended particles settle out after mixing. On the other hand, a solution is a homogeneous mixture in which no settling occurs and in which the dissolved...

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Solubility

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A solution is a homogeneous mixture composed of a solvent, the major component, and a solute, the minor component. The physical state of a solution—solid, liquid, or gas—is typically the same as that of the solvent. Solute concentrations are often described with qualitative terms such as dilute (of relatively low concentration) and concentrated (of relatively high concentration).
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The high insolubility of some precipitates can result in an unfavorable relative supersaturation. This can lead to colloidal particles with a large surface-to-mass ratio, where adsorption is promoted. For instance, in the precipitation of silver chloride, silver ions are adsorbed on the surface of the colloidal particles, forming a primary layer. This layer attracts ions of opposite charge (such as nitrate ions), forming a diffuse secondary layer of adsorbed ions. This electric double layer...

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Updated: Jun 17, 2025

Preparation of Hollow Polystyrene Particles and Microcapsules by Radical Polymerization of Janus Droplets Consisting of Hydrocarbon and Fluorocarbon Oils

Preparation of Hollow Polystyrene Particles and Microcapsules by Radical Polymerization of Janus Droplets Consisting of Hydrocarbon and Fluorocarbon Oils

Published on: January 25, 2018

Dynamic surfactants drive anisotropic colloidal assembly.

Yaxin Xu¹, Prabhat Jandhyala¹, Sho C Takatori¹

¹Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93117, USA.

The Journal of Chemical Physics

|August 8, 2024

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Colloids with dynamic polymer brushes form unusual anisotropic assemblies, even from simple spherical particles. This dynamic surfactant behavior enables novel self-assembly pathways and complex structures like lamellar and vesicle phases.

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Area of Science:

Soft Matter Physics
Colloid Science
Materials Chemistry

Background:

Colloidal building blocks with dynamic interactions exhibit complex self-assembly.
Surface-mobile polymer brushes act as 'dynamic surfactants' on colloids.
Traditional polymer-grafted colloids typically form isotropic assemblies.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the phase behavior of colloids coated with dynamic surfactants.
To demonstrate the formation of anisotropic macroscopic assemblies from spherical colloids.
To understand how dynamic surfactant reorganization influences self-assembly pathways.

Main Methods:

Utilized Brownian Dynamics simulations.
Employed dynamic density functional theory.
Analyzed microscopic polymer distributions and their geometric constraints.

Main Results:

Demonstrated anisotropic macroscopic assemblies from spherical colloids with isotropic interactions.
Observed time-dependent reorganization of dynamic surfactants leading to novel phase diagrams.
Identified packing into lamellar, string, and vesicle phases controlled by polymer distributions.

Conclusions:

Dynamic surfactants on colloidal building blocks enable anisotropic self-assembly.
This dynamic behavior allows for assembly pathways not achievable with static interactions.
Offers versatile building blocks with design freedom for non-equilibrium assembly.