A Tribute to Marian Smoluchowski's Legacy on Soft Grains Assembly and Hydrogel Formation

A. Gadomski, N. Kruszewska, P. Bełdowski, B. Lent, M. Ausloos
2018 Acta Physica Polonica B  
The paper compares the statistical description of physical-metallurgical processes and ceramic-polycrystalline evolutions, termed the normal grain growth (NGG), as adopted to soft- and chemically-reactive grains, with a Smoluchowski's population-constant kernel cluster-cluster aggregation (CCA) model, concerning irreversible chemical reaction kinetics. The former aiming at comprehending, in a semi-quantitative way, the volume-conservative (pressure-drifted) grain-growth process which we propose
more » ... to adopt for hydrogel systems at quite low temperature (near a gel point). It has been noticed, that by identifying the mean cluster size from the Smoluchowski CCA description with the mean cluster radius' size R_D, from the NGG approach of proximate grains, one is able to embark on equivalence of both frameworks, but only under certain conditions. For great enough, close-packed clusters, the equivalence can be obtained by rearranging the time domain with rescaled time variable, where the scaling function originates from the dispersive (long-tail, or fractal) kinetics, with a single exponent equal to d+1 (in d-dimensional (Euclidean) space). This can be of interest for experimenters, working in the field of thermoresponsive gels formation, where crystalline structural predispositions overwhelm.
doi:10.5506/aphyspolb.49.993 fatcat:hnvnpn3ttndt3hr3kvnvkoqbcu