Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
www.elsevier.com/locate/powtec
Abstract
The effect of energy input, pH and temperature on de-aggregation of hydrophilic silicon dioxide powder (particle size 12 nm) in a high
shear mixer was investigated. It has been found that de-aggregation is a two step process. Initially, at low energy input very large aggregates
(31000 m) are gradually broken into smaller secondary aggregates (2100 m) of a single modal size distributions. As the energy input
increases primary aggregates (0.031 m) are eroded from the secondary aggregates leading to bimodal size distributions with the first mode
between 0.03 m and 1 m corresponding to the primary aggregates and the second mode between 2 m and 100 m corresponding to the
secondary aggregates. At a sufficiently high energy density all secondary aggregates are broken into primary aggregates however, even at the
highest energy density employed the primary aggregates could not be broken into single nano-particles. The temperature and the pH affect deaggregation kinetics but do not alter de-aggregation pattern. Increasing pH at low temperature speeds up de-aggregation, whilst increasing pH
at high temperature slows down de-aggregation process.
2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Silica nano-particles; Suspensions; De-aggregation; Primary aggregates; Secondary aggregates; Energy density
1. Introduction
Nano-particles such as titanium, aluminium or silicon oxides
have wide industrial applications in manufacturing of pigments,
fillers, ceramics, catalysts as well as electromagnetic and optical
devices. In the majority of those applications nano-particles are
processed as suspensions in different aqueous solutions and
frequently the quality of final products depends on the
properties of these suspensions characterized by the particle
size, size distribution, shape and morphology [1]. Therefore,
nano-particles which are often supplied in the form of dry
powders have to be re-dispersed in aqueous solutions to give
homogenous, stable dispersions and it is essential that the
aggregates inherently present in dry nano-powders are broken
into primary nano-particles during dispersion process.
Large aggregates suspended in a fluid are broken when the
hydrodynamic forces (determined by the flow field) exceed the
cohesive bonds between particles or smaller aggregates. The
strength of individual bonds depends on the type of nano Corresponding author.
E-mail address: A.W.Pacek@bham.ac.uk (A.W. Pacek).
0032-5910/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.powtec.2007.01.006
204
Fig. 1. Transient volume distribution functions at different energy dissipation rates: (a) fragmentation of large secondary aggregates at 4.8 W kg 1; (b) fragmentation of
secondary aggregates at 21.7 W kg 1; (c) fragmentation of secondary aggregates at 89.9 W kg 1 during first 20 min of processing; (d) erosion of primary aggregates
from the surface of secondary aggregates at 89.9 W kg 1 after longer processing time. 5% Aerosil in water, pH 4, t = 20 C.
205
206
Fig. 3. Median diameters (d50) of the secondary aggregates at pH 4 and T = 20 C as function of: (a) processing time and (b) energy density at different energy
dissipation rates: = 4.8 W kg 1 ( ), = 21.7 W kg 1 (), = 89.9 W kg 1 (). Solid lines linear regression.
207
208
A
12ph2
209
lower than van der Waals and hydration energies and they are
practically negligible both at shorter and at longer separation
distances. It is possible to postulate that as the surface of
aggregates is not very smooth the shortest distance separating
them is probably larger than 1 nm and at such a distance the
repulsive hydration energy does not allow entry into the deep
primary well. This means that the secondary aggregates which
are built from the primary aggregates are relatively weak and can
be broken at low energy input as discussed above. Very strong
repulsive hydration interactions also explain exceptional stability
of the suspensions of primary silica aggregates even at pH
corresponding to the iso-electric point [11,14]. On the other hand,
the distance between smooth, small single particles (of the order
of 12 nm) can be below 0.1 nm which allows them to aggregate
irreversibly by entering the primary well. It is also possible that
the strength of these very small, primary aggregates might
depend on the solubility of silica in water. As the pH and
temperature increase from 20 C to 70 C the solubility of silica
increases drastically [19] which might lead to a faster conversion
of the liquid bridges containing relatively large amounts of
dissolved silica into very strong solid silica bridges.
Theoretically predicted effect of pH on the electrostatic
repulsive forces is very small and it does not allow explanation
of rather strong effect of pH on de-aggregation kinetics at elevated
temperature observed experimentally. This confirms the literature
suggestions that electrostatic interactions within DLVO model
have serious limitations in the case of silica nano-particles.
Nomenclature
A
Hamaker constant
C
Constant defined by Eq. (3)
d32
Sauter mean diameter
d90- 90% (volume) of aggregates below d90%
D
Rotor diameter
e
Electron charge
E
Energy density
h
Distance between particles
kB
Boltzman constant
N
Rotor speed
Po
Power number
V
Interaction energy
R
Particle radius
r2
Coefficient of determination
t
Time
t95% Time necessary to break 95% of secondary
aggregates below 1 m
T
Absolute temperature
z
Valency
Electrostatic potential
Liquid density
4. Conclusions
This work is a part of the PROFORM (Transforming Nanoparticles into Sustainable Consumer Products Through Advanced Product and Process Formulation EC Reference
NMP4-CT-2004-505645) project which is partially funded by
the 6th Framework Programme of EC. The contents of this
paper reflect only the authors' view. The authors gratefully
acknowledge the useful discussions held with other partners of
the Consortium: Bayer Technology Services GmbH; BHR
Group Limited; Centre for Computational Continuum Mechanics (C3M); Karlsruhe University, Inst. of Food Process Eng;
Loughborough University, Department of Chemical Eng;
Poznan University of Technology, Inst. of Chemical Technology and Eng; Rockfield Software Limited; Unilever UK Port
Sunlight, Warsaw University of Technology, Department of
Chemical and Process Eng.
This study has revealed the two stage mechanism of deaggregation of large (+ 50 m) secondary aggregates made of
silica nano-particles (size 12 nm) and the effect of the
temperature and pH on the kinetics of de-aggregation and size
distributions of the primary aggregates. In the first stage, at low
energy density, the large aggregates of single modal size
distributions are broken by fracture and the transient size
distributions slowly shift towards smaller sizes as energy
density increases. The median size of the aggregates at this stage
is well correlated by the sizeenergy model. At higher energy
density, the mechanism of breakage changes into erosion of
primary aggregates (50 nm to 1 m) from the surface of the
secondary aggregates. This leads to bimodal volume distributions with the first mode between 50 nm and 1 m and the
second mode between 3 and 80 m. At a sufficiently high
energy density, the secondary aggregates disappear leaving only
small primary aggregates in the suspension.
The effect of pH on the kinetics of de-aggregation depends on
the temperature; at low temperatures the increase of pH increases
the de-aggregation rate but as the temperature increases the
increase of pH leads to a significant reduction of de-aggregation
rate. Even at the most favourable conditions (low temperature,
high pH, high energy density), breakage of the primary
aggregates which were smaller than 1 m into single nanoparticles was not observed. This implies that primary aggregation is an irreversible process, e.g., primary aggregates cannot be
broken into single silica oxide nano-particles.
[J]
[m]
[m]
[m]
[C]
[kJ kg 1]
[m]
[J K 1]
[s 1]
[]
[J/m2]
[m]
[]
[min]
[min]
[K]
[]
[]
[V]
[W kg 1]
[m 1]
[kg m 3]
Acknowledgement
References
[1] W. Peukert, H. Schwarzer, F. Stenger, Control of aggregation in production and handling of nanoparticles, Chem. Eng. Process. 44 (2004)
245252.
[2] J. Boyle, I. Manas-Zloczower, D.L. Feke, Influence of particle morphology
and flow conditions on the dispersion behaviour of fumed silica in silicone
polymers, Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 21 (2004) 205212.
[3] S.P. Rwei, I. Manas-Zloczower, D.L. Feke, Observation of carbon black
agglomerate dispersion in a simple shear flows, Polym. Eng. Sci. 30 (1990)
701706.
[4] K.A. Kusters, S.E. Prastnis, S.G. Thoma, D.M. Smith, Energysize reduction
laws for ultrasonic fragmentation, Powder Technol. 80 (1994) 253263.
[5] M. Goa, E. Frossberg, Prediction of product size distribution for a stirred
ball mill, Powder Technol. 84 (1995) 101106.
210