Two-stage kinetics of field-induced aggregation of medium-sized magnetic nanoparticles

H Ezzaier; J Alves Marins; I Razvin; M Abbas; A Ben Haj Amara; A Zubarev; P Kuzhir

doi:10.1063/1.4977993

Two-stage kinetics of field-induced aggregation of medium-sized magnetic nanoparticles

J Chem Phys. 2017 Mar 21;146(11):114902. doi: 10.1063/1.4977993.

Authors

H Ezzaier¹, J Alves Marins¹, I Razvin¹, M Abbas², A Ben Haj Amara³, A Zubarev⁴, P Kuzhir¹

Affiliations

¹ University Côte d'Azur, CNRS UMR 7010 Institute of Physics of Nice, Parc Valrose, Nice 06100, France.
² Laboratoire de Génie Chimique, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, INPT, UPS, Allée Emile Monso, 31030 Toulouse, France.
³ Laboratory of Physics of Lamellar Materials and Hybrid Nano-Materials, Faculty of Sciences of Bizerte, University of Carthage, 7021 Zarzouna, Tunisia.
⁴ Department of Mathematical Physics, Urals Federal University, Lenina Ave. 51, 620083 Ekaterinburg, Russia.

PMID: 28330343
DOI: 10.1063/1.4977993

Abstract

The present paper is focused on the theoretical and experimental study of the kinetics of field-induced aggregation of magnetic nanoparticles of a size range of 20-100 nm. Our results demonstrate that (a) in polydisperse suspensions, the largest particles could play a role of the centers of nucleation for smaller particles during the earliest heterogeneous nucleation stage; (b) an intermediate stage of the aggregate growth (due to diffusion and migration of individual nanoparticles towards the aggregates) is weakly influenced by the magnetic field strength, at least at high supersaturation;

(c) the stage of direct coalescence of drop-like aggregates (occurring under magnetic attraction between them) plays a dominant role at the intermediate and late stages of the phase separation, with the time scale decreasing as a square of the aggregate magnetization.