Clustering passive particles by active agents is a promising route for fabrication of colloidal structures. Here, we report the dynamic clustering of micrometric beads in a suspension of motile bacteria. We characterize the coarsening dynamics for various bead sizes, surface fractions and bacterial concentrations. We show that the time scale $τ$ for the onset of clustering is governed by the time of first encounter of diffusing beads. At large time ($t \gg τ$), we observe a robust cluster growth as $t^{1/3}$, similar to the Ostwald ripening mechanism. From bead tracking measurements, we extract the short-range bacteria-induced attractive force at the origin of this clustering.
When liquid droplets nucleate and grow in a polymer network, compressive stresses can significantly increase their internal pressure, reaching values that far exceed the Laplace pressure. When droplets have grown in a polymer network with a stiffness gradient, droplets in relatively stiff regions of the network tend to dissolve, favoring growth of droplets in softer regions. Here, we show that this elastic ripening can be strong enough to reverse the direction of Ostwald ripening: large droplets can shrink to feed the growth of smaller ones. To numerically model these experiments, we generaliz…
We report the first experimental study of cluster size distributions in electrostatically driven granular submonolayers. The cluster size distribution in this far-from-equilibrium process exhibits dynamic scaling behavior characteristic of the (nearly equilibrium) Ostwald ripening, controlled by the attachment and detachment of the "gas" particles. The scaled size distribution, however, is different from the classical Wagner distribution obtained in the limit of a vanishingly small area fraction of the clusters. A much better agreement is found with the theory of Conti et al. [Phys. Rev. E 65,…
The phenomenon of Ostwald Ripening is generally considered a limiting factor in the monodisperse production of nanoparticles. However, by analysing the free energy of a binary AB solution with precipitated A particles we show that there is a region in the parameter space of component concentrations and interaction energies where smaller particles are more stable than bigger ones. The strong binding of B species to surfaces of A particles significantly decreases the particle effective surface energy, making it negative. The global minimum of free energy in such a system is thus reached when mas…
Numerical solution of Smoluchowski coagulation equation combined with Ostwald ripening
Lomonosov Moscow State University（莫斯科国立大学）；Marchuk Institute of Numerical Mathematics of Russian Academy of Science（俄罗斯科学院马丘克数值数学研究所）；Ural Federal University（乌拉尔联邦大学）
The ostwald ripening of bubbles is studied by molecular dynamics simulations involving up to 679 million Lennard-Jones particles. Many bubbles appear after depressurizing a system that is initially maintained in the pure-liquid phase, and the coarsening of bubbles follows. The self-similarity of the bubble-size distribution function predicted by Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner theory is directly confirmed. The total number of bubbles decreases asymptotically as $t^{-x}$ with scaling exponent $x$. As the initial temperature increases, the exponent changes from $x=3/2$ to $1$, which implies that the gro…
We study the dynamics of clusters of Active Brownian Disks generated by Motility-Induced Phase Separation, by applying an algorithm that we devised to track cluster trajectories. We identify an aggregation mechanism that goes beyond Ostwald ripening but also yields $z=3$. Active clusters of mass $M$ self-propel with enhanced diffusivity $D\sim$ Pe$^2/\sqrt{M}$. Their fast motion drives aggregation into large fractal structures, which are patchworks of diverse hexatic orders, and coexist with regular, orientationally uniform, smaller ones. To bring out the impact of activity, we perform a compa…
The Ostwald ripening phenomenon for gas bubbles in a liquid consists mainly in gas transfer from smaller bubbles to larger bubbles. An experiment was carried out in which the Ostwald ripening for air bubbles, in a liquid fluid with some rheological parameters of the human blood, is reproduced. There it has been measured time evolution of bubbles mean radius, number of bubbles and radius size distribution, where the initial bubbles radii normalized distribution behaves like a Tsallis ($q$-Weibull) distribution. One of the main results shows that, while the number of bubbles decreases in time th…
Liquid-liquid phase separation is an important mechanism for compartmentalizing the cell's cytoplasm, allowing the dynamic organization of the components necessary for survival. However, it is not clear how phase separation is affected by the complex viscoelastic environment inside the cell. Here, we study theoretically how stiffness gradients influence droplet growth and arrangement. We show that stiffness gradients imply concentration gradients in the dilute phase, which transport droplet material from stiff to soft regions. Consequently, droplets dissolve in the stiff region, creating a dis…
Suspensions of spherical active particles often show microphase separation. At a continuum level, coupling their scalar density to fluid flow, there are two distinct explanations. Each involves an effective interfacial tension: the first mechanical (causing flow) and the second diffusive (causing Ostwald ripening). Here we show how the negative mechanical tension of contractile swimmers creates, via a self-shearing instability, a steady-state life cycle of droplet growth interrupted by division whose scaling behavior we predict. When the diffusive tension is also negative, this is replaced by …
The stability of alkane-in-water nanoemulsions during the sub-stationary regime is studied by means of Emulsion Stability Simulations (ESS). The effects of Ostwald ripening, flocculation, coalescence, gravity, and hydration forc- es are considered. According to these calculations flocculation and coalescence are predominant during the first few seconds after the preparation of the emulsion. This favors the generation of a right-skewed Drop Size Distribu- tion (DSD). As the system evolves, the drops grow larger and more repulsive causing a slow down of the flocculation process. In the case of d…
We present some experimental and simulation results that reproduces the Ostwald ripening (gas diffusion among bubbles) for air bubbles in a liquid fluid. Concerning the experiment, there it is measured the time evolution of bubbles mean radius, number of bubbles and radius size distribution. One of the main results shows that, while the number of bubbles decreases in time the bubbles mean radius increases, hence, it follows that the smaller bubbles disappear whereas the -- potentially dangerous for the diver -- larger bubbles grow up. Consequently, this effect suggests a possible contribution …
We investigate the swim pressure exerted by non-chiral and chiral active particles on convex or concave circular boundaries. Active particles are modeled as non-interacting and non-aligning self-propelled Brownian particles. The convex and concave circular boundaries are used as models representing a fixed inclusion immersed in an active bath and a cavity (or container) enclosing the active particles, respectively. We first present a detailed analysis of the role of convex versus concave boundary curvature and of the chirality of active particles on their spatial distribution, chirality-induce…
We study diamagnetically levitated foams with widely different liquid fractions. Due to the levitation, drainage is effectively suppressed and the dynamics is driven by the coarsening of the foam bubbles. For dry foams, the bubble size increases as the square root of foam age, as expected from a generalized von Neumann law. At higher liquid content, the behavior changes to that of Ostwald ripening where the bubbles grow with the 1/3 power of the age. Using Diffusing Wave Spectroscopy we study the local dynamics in the different regimes and find diffusive behavior for dry foams and kinetic beha…
We revisit motility-induced phase separation in two models of active particles interacting by pairwise repulsion. We show that the resulting dense phase contains gas bubbles distributed algebraically up to a typically large cutoff scale. At large enough system size and/or global density, all the gas may be contained inside the bubbles, at which point the system is microphase-separated with a finite cut-off bubble scale. We observe that the ordering is anomalous, with different dynamics for the coarsening of the dense phase and of the gas bubbles. This phenomenology is reproduced by a "reduced …
Pair interactions between active particles need not follow Newton's third law. In this work we propose a continuum model of pattern formation due to non-reciprocal interaction between multiple species of scalar active matter. The classical Cahn-Hilliard model is minimally modified by supplementing the equilibrium Ginzburg-Landau dynamics with particle number conserving currents which cannot be derived from a free energy, reflecting the microscopic departure from action-reaction symmetry. The strength of the asymmetry in the interaction determines whether the steady state exhibits a macroscopic…
There are two modes by which clusters of aggregating particles can coalesce: The clusters can merge either (i) by the Ostwald ripening process in which particles diffuse from one cluster to the other whilst the cluster centres remain stationary, or (ii) by means of a cluster translation mode, in which the clusters move towards each other and join. To understand in detail the interplay between these different modes, we study a model system of hard particles with an additional attraction between them. The particles diffuse along narrow channels with smooth or periodically corrugated walls, so th…
Particle stabilized emulsions have received an enormous interest in the recent past, but our understanding of the dynamics of emulsion formation is still limited. For simple spherical particles, the time dependent growth of fluid domains is dominated by the formation of droplets, particle adsorption and coalescence of droplets (Ostwald ripening), which eventually can be almost fully blocked due to the presence of the particles. Ellipsoidal particles are known to be more efficient stabilizers of fluid interfaces than spherical particles and their anisotropic shape and the related additional rot…
