No Arabic abstract
Wet granular materials are characterized by a defined bond energy in their particle interaction such that breaking a bond implies an irreversible loss of a fixed amount of energy. Associated with the bond energy is a nonequilibrium transition, setting in as the granular temperature falls below the bond energy. The subsequent aggregation of particles into clusters is shown to be a self-similar growth process with a cluster size distribution that obeys scaling. In the early phase of aggregation the clusters are fractals with D_f=2, for later times we observe gelation. We use simple scaling arguments to derive the temperature decay in the early and late stages of cooling and verify our results with event-driven simulations.
A recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 156101 (2009)] reports the experimental observation of aggregation of colloidal particles dispersed in a liquid mixture of heavy water and 3-methylpyridine. The experimental data are interpreted in terms of a model which accounts solely for the competing effects of the interparticle electrostatic repulsion and of the attractive critical Casimir force. Here we show, however, that the reported aggregation actually occurs within ranges of values of the correlation length and of the Debye screening length ruled out by the proposed model and that a significant part of the experimental data presented in the Letter cannot be consistently interpreted in terms of such a model.
We discuss the distribution of ions around highly charged PEs when there is competition between monovalent and multivalent ions, pointing out that in this case the number of condensed ions is sensitive to short-range interactions, salt, and model-dependent approximations. This sensitivity is discussed in the context of recent experiments on DNA aggregation, induced by multivalent counterions such as spermine and spermidine.
Water plays a fundamental role in protein stability. However, the effect of the properties of water on the behaviour of proteins is only partially understood. Several theories have been proposed to give insight into the mechanisms of cold and pressure denaturation, or the limits of temperature and pressure above which no protein has a stable, functional state, or how unfolding and aggregation are related. Here we review our results based on a theoretical approach that can rationalise the water contribution to protein solutions free energy. We show, using Monte Carlo simulations, how we can rationalise experimental data with our recent results. We discuss how our findings can help develop new strategies for the design of novel synthetic biopolymers or possible approaches for mitigating neurodegenerative pathologies.
We use field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) to investigate the growth of palladium colloids over the surface of thin films of WO3/glass. The film is prepared by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) at different temperatures. A PdCl2 (aq) droplet is injected on the surface and in the presence of steam hydrogen the droplet is dried through a reduction reaction process. Two distinct aggregation regimes of palladium colloids are observed over the substrates. We argue that the change in aggregation dynamics emerges when the measured water drop Contact Angel (CA) for the WO3/glass thin films passes a certain threshold value, namely CA = 46 degrees, where a crossover in kinetic aggregation of palladium colloids occurs. Our results suggest that the mass fractal dimension of palladium aggregates follows a power-law behavior. The fractal dimension (Df) in the fast aggregation regime, where the measured CA values vary from 27 up to 46 degrees, according to different substrate deposition temperatures, is Df = 1.75 (0.02). This value of Df is in excellent agreement with kinetic aggregation of other colloidal systems in fast aggregation regime. Whereas for the slow aggregation regime, with CA = 58 degrees, the fractal dimension changes abruptly to Df=1.92 (0.03). We have also used a modified Box-Counting method to calculate fractal dimension of gray-level images and observe that the crossover at around CA = 46 degrees remains unchanged.
A scaling theory is developed for diffusion-limited cluster aggregation in a porous medium, where the primary particles and clusters stick irreversibly to the walls of the pore space as well as to each other. Three scaling regimes are predicted, connected by smooth crossovers. The first regime is at low primary particle concentrations where the primary particles stick individually to the walls. The second regime is at intermediate concentrations where clusters grow to a certain size, smaller than the pore size, then stick individually to the walls. The third regime is at high concentrations where the final state is a pore-space-filling network.