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Heterogeneity, suspension, and yielding in sparse microfibrous cellulose gels 2: strain rate-dependent two-fluid behavior

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Abstract

Complex fluids are widely used in formulated products to impart rheological properties like stability, performance, and aesthetics. Yield stress fluids are a particularly important example, enabling applications like particle suspension, surface coating, and therapeutic delivery. Recent work has shown that particle suspension in yield stress fluids can be a strong function of yielding and flow heterogeneities, especially in anisotropic fiber dispersions. This work uses a microbubble technique to study the deformation before and during yielding of microfibrous cellulose suspensions. We note significant variations in suspension performance as a result of fiber rearrangement and heterogeneities. Strong strain rate dependencies are found to vary local network yield strength, and confocal microscopy quantifies structural reinforcement and deformation rate effects. The observed behavior indicates a two-fluid interpretation may help interpret sparse network flow and suspension properties.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the BioMedical Imaging Facility (BMIF) and the Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre (MWAC) at UNSW for confocal microscopy imaging and support.

Funding

We received financial support from the Procter & Gamble Company and the UNSW Major Research Equipment Infrastructure Initiative (MREII 2014). This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSF PHY-1748958

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Complex Fluids Group, Chemical Engineering, UNSW Australia, Sydney, Australia

    Jie Song, Stuart W. Prescott & Patrick T. Spicer

  2. Microstructured Fluids, Procter & Gamble Co., West Chester, OH, USA

    Marco Caggioni

  3. Chemical Engineering, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Todd M. Squires

  4. Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA

    James F. Gilchrist

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  1. Jie Song
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  2. Marco Caggioni
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  3. Todd M. Squires
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  4. James F. Gilchrist
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  5. Stuart W. Prescott
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  6. Patrick T. Spicer
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Correspondence to Patrick T. Spicer.

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Song, J., Caggioni, M., Squires, T.M. et al. Heterogeneity, suspension, and yielding in sparse microfibrous cellulose gels 2: strain rate-dependent two-fluid behavior. Rheol Acta 58, 231–239 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00397-019-01141-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00397-019-01141-3

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