Structure and Frictional Properties of Colloid Gel

• Main Author: Masayuki Tokita
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2014-03-01
• Series: Polymers
• Subjects: poly(acrylamide) gel; confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM); friction coefficient between the solvent and the polymer network of a gel; colloid gel; diffusion limited aggregation (DLA); cluster-cluster aggregation (CCA)
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/6/3/651

Polymer gels are known to be opaque when the preparation conditions, such as the reaction temperature and the composition, are changed. The increase of the opaqueness of the gel suggests strongly the change of network structure. Here, we are going to review the recent studies on the structure and the frictional study of the opaque poly(acrylamide) gel. The results indicate that the opaque poly(acrylamide) gel consists of the fractal aggregate of the colloidal particles of sub-micrometer in size. The density of the colloid particle is calculated from the structural parameters and is found to be of the order of about 1 g/cm3. The results indicate that the main chain component and the cross-linker is densely cross-linked into the particle. The frictional property of poly(acrylamide) gel is analyzed in terms of the structural parameters of the gel. It is found that the frictional property of the opaque gel is well explained in terms of the structural parameters of the opaque gel.