Quasi-monodisperse colloids

Many synthetic methods for the preparation of nanodispersed material have been reported, several routes applying conventional colloidal chemistry, with others involving the kinetically controlled precipitation of nanocrystallites using organometallic compounds.3 6-343 Controlled precipitation reactions yield dilute suspensions of quasi-monodispersed particles. This synthetic method sometimes involves the use of seeds of very small particles for the subsequent growth of larger ones.359 360... 

In Zerrouki s experiments, the preparation of aqueous phases of identical clusters is performed in six steps. First, colloidal particles of silica, 1.2 pm in diameter, are synthesized. Next, the surface of the particles is made hydrophobic by chemical grafting. Then, an oil-in-water premix emulsion is made by adding an octane suspension of the colloids in an aqueous solution. Controlled shear of the premix in a Couette-type apparatus is subsequently performed to obtain a quasi-monodisperse... 

A more rigorous approach to the description of the colloid surfactant diffusion to the interfaee was proposed by Noskov [133]. The reduced diffusion equations for micelles and monomers, which take into account the multistep nature of micellisation and the polydispersity of micelles, were derived for time intervals corresponding to the fast and slow processes using the method applied initially by Aniansson and Wall to uniform systems. Analogous equations have been derived later by Johner and Joanny [135] and also by Dushkin et al. [137]. Recently Dushkin has studied also the adsorption kinetics in the framework of a simplified model of quasi-monodisperse micelles. In this case the assumption of the existence of two kinds of micelles permits to study the main features of the surface tension relaxation in real micellar solution [138]. The main steps of the derivation of surfactant diffusion equations in micellar solutions are presented below [133, 134]. 

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