Study of Colloidal Stability and Viscosity of Concentrated Aqueous Silicasols

A study of the colloidal stability of nanosuspensions obtained by diluting concentrated silicasols was carried out. A wide range of mass concentrations of nanoparticles (from 1 to 50 wt.%) and average sizes of primary particles (from 10 to 35 nm) were considered. The analysis of sedimentation experiments showed that the considered samples have a very high colloidal stability. The characterization of the nanoparticle sizes by electron microscopy was carried out. The particle size distributions in the suspension were obtained by acoustic spectroscopy. Almost all of the considered silica sols have been shown to have a very narrow particle size distribution. The dependences of the dynamic viscosity of nanosuspensions on the concentration and size of nanoparticles are obtained. Based on the dependences, empirical correlations in a wide range of particle concentrations were obtained.