Sedimentation of interacting nanoparticles

A. Mežulis - E. Blūms - M. Maiorov - A. Līckrastiņa

Institute of Physics, University of Latvia, 32 Miera, Salaspils LV-2169, Latvia

Abstract
The present work deals with a 100 days lasting sedimentation experiment with a ferrofluid, the polydispersity of which obeys the log-normal distribution. Experimental data are provided by particle concentration measurements during the experiment as well as by DLS and VSM analyses at the end of the experiment. We compare the obtained data with a theoretical sedimentation model of interacting polydisperse particles developed by G.K. Batchelor. The comparison proves that the applied interacting model gives much better fit with experiment than the simple non-interacting Stokes model. Figs 3, Refs 3.