2003/12/31 by A. de Candia, E. Del Gado, Emanuela Del Gado +6
Chemistry · Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Chemical engineering #Chemical physics #Chemistry #Cluster (spacecraft) #Colloid #Colloidal particle #Composite material #Conductivity #Material Dynamics and Properties #Materials science #Nanotechnology #Percolation (cognitive psychology) #Percolation theory #Phase Equilibria and Thermodynamics #Physical chemistry #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #Power law #Relaxation (psychology) #Volume fraction #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.physa.2005.07.003
published as Physica A 358 (2005) 239-248 · new version, 5 pages, 9 figures
openalex publication_date 2005/08/09 · arxiv created 2005/10/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
By means of molecular dynamics, we study a model system for colloidal suspensions where the interaction is based on a competition between attraction and repulsion. At low temperatures the relaxation time τ first increases as a power law as a function of the volume fraction ϕ and then, due to the finite lifetime of the bonded structures, it deviates from this critical behavior. We show that colloidal gelation at low temperatures and low volume fractions is crucially related to the formation of spanning long living cluster. Besides agreeing with experimental findings in different colloidal systems, our results shed new light on the different role played by the formation of long living bonds and the crowding of the particles in colloidal structural arrest.