CAREER: Structure and Rheology of Soft Attractive Colloids: Interactions Due to Bridging Polymers and Applications to Fluorocarbon Gels

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ABSTRACTCTS-0238873S. BhatiaU. of Massachusetts AmherstThis project is focused on investigating the structure and rheology of soft attractive gels. The specific system proposed is water-in-fluorocarbon emulsions in which the gel transition is produced by attractive polymer bridging interactions. The PI will perform rheology, neutron scattering and dynamic light scattering measurements to determine the nature of the interaction forces and the gel structure. The concentration and molecular weight of the polymer will be varied to control the magnitude and range of the bridging attraction. In addition to the experiments, the PI proposes theoretical experiments to predict the magnitude of the bridging attraction and to improve the available model to include interactions between the polymer chains themselves.