Vertical drying of a suspension of sticks: Monte Carlo simulation for continuous two-dimensional problem

Abstract

The vertical drying of a two dimensional colloidal film containing zero-thickness sticks (lines) was studied by means of kinetic Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The continuous two-dimensional problem for both the positions and orientations was considered. The initial state before drying was produced using a model of random sequential adsorption with isotropic orientations of the sticks. During the evaporation, an upper interface falls with a linear velocity in the vertical direction and the sticks undergo translational and rotational Brownian motions. The MC simulations were run at different initial number concentrations (the numbers of sticks per unit area), $p_i$, and solvent evaporation rates, $u$. For completely dried films, the spatial distributions of the sticks, the order parameters and the electrical conductivities of the films in both the horizontal, $x$, and vertical, $y$, directions were examined. Significant evaporation-driven self-assembly and stratification of the sticks in the vertical direction was observed. The extent of stratification increased with increasing values of $u$. The anisotropy of the electrical conductivity of the film can be finely regulated by changes in the values of $p_i$ and $u$.

10 pages, 8 figures, 47 references, submitted to PRE

References in corpus (4)

• Dynamic stratification in drying films of colloidal mixtures
• Phase diagram of self-assembled rigid rods on two-dimensional lattices: Theory and Monte Carlo simulations
• Monte Carlo Simulation of Evaporation Driven Self-Assembly in Suspension of Colloidal Rods
• Diffusion-driven self-assembly of rod-like particles: Monte Carlo simulation on a square lattice

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Electrical conductance of two-dimensional composites with embedded rodlike fillers: an analytical consideration and comparison of two computational approaches
• Simulation of the electrical conductivity of two-dimensional films with aligned rod-like conductive fillers: effect of the filler length dispersity
• Sedimentation of a suspension of rods: Monte Carlo simulation of a continuous two-dimensional problem