Contact Forces between TiO2 Nanoparticles Governed by an Interplay of Adsorbed Water Layers and Roughness

Interparticle forces govern the mechanical behavior of granular matter and direct the hierarchical assembling of nanoparticles into supramolecular structures. Understanding how these forces change under different ambient conditions would directly benefit industrial-scale nanoparticle processing unit...

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Détails bibliographiques
Publié dans:Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids. - 1985. - 31(2015), 41 vom: 20. Okt., Seite 11288-95
Auteur principal: Laube, Jens (Auteur)
Autres auteurs: Salameh, Samir, Kappl, Michael, Mädler, Lutz, Colombi Ciacchi, Lucio
Format: Article en ligne
Langue:English
Publié: 2015
Accès à la collection:Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids
Sujets:Journal Article
Description
Résumé:Interparticle forces govern the mechanical behavior of granular matter and direct the hierarchical assembling of nanoparticles into supramolecular structures. Understanding how these forces change under different ambient conditions would directly benefit industrial-scale nanoparticle processing units such as filtering and fluidization. Here we rationalize and quantify the contributions of dispersion, capillary, and solvation forces between hydrophilic TiO2 nanoparticles with sub-10 nm diameter and show that the humidity dependence of the interparticle forces is governed by a delicate interplay between the structure of adsorbed water layers and the surface roughness. All-atom molecular dynamics modeling supported by force-spectroscopy experiments reveals an unexpected decrease in the contact forces at increasing humidity for nearly spherical particles, while the forces between rough particles are insensitive to strong humidity changes. Our results also frame the limits of applicability of discrete solvation and continuum capillary theories in a regime where interparticle forces are dominated by the molecular nature of surface adsorbates
Description:Date Completed 14.01.2016
Date Revised 20.10.2015
published: Print-Electronic
Citation Status PubMed-not-MEDLINE
ISSN:1520-5827
DOI:10.1021/acs.langmuir.5b02989