Work

Crack formation and prevention in colloidal drops

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: Crack formation is a frequent result of residual stress release from colloidal films made by the evaporation of colloidal droplets containing nanoparticles. Crack prevention is a significant task in industrial applications such as painting and inkjet printing with colloidal nanoparticles. Here, we illustrate how colloidal drops evaporate and how crack generation is dependent on the particle size and initial volume fraction, through direct visualization of the individual colloids with confocal laser microscopy. To prevent crack formation, we suggest use of a versatile method to control the colloid-polymer interactions by mixing a nonadsorbing polymer with the colloidal suspension, which is known to drive gelation of the particles with short-range attraction. Gelation-driven crack prevention is a feasible and simple method to obtain crack-free, uniform coatings through drying-mediated assembly of colloidal nanoparticles.

Source: Scientific Reports

DOI: 10.1038/srep13166

Authors: Jin Young Kim, Kun Cho, Seul-a Ryu, So Youn Kim, Byung Mook Weon

Institutions: Sungkyunkwan University, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

Language: English

Topic: Fluid Dynamics and Thin Films

Subfield: Computational Mechanics

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,690

Funders: National Research Foundation, Sungkyunkwan University, Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, National Research Foundation of Korea