Off-equilibrium surface tension in colloidal suspensions.
We study the fingering instability of the interface between two miscible fluids, a colloidal suspension and its own solvent. The temporal evolution of the interface in a Hele-Shaw cell is found to be governed by the competition between the nonlinear viscosity of the suspension and an off-equilibrium, effective surface tension Γe. By studying suspensions in a wide range of volume fractions, ΦC, we show that Γe∼ΦC2, in agreement with Korteweg's theory for miscible fluids. The surface tension exhibits an anomalous increase with particle size, which we account for using entropy arguments.
Université Montpellier 2, Laboratoire Charles Coulomb UMR 5221, F-34095 Montpellier, France and CNRS, Laboratoire Charles Coulomb UMR 5221, F-34095 Montpellier, France.
Domenico
D
Truzzolillo
Université Montpellier 2, Laboratoire Charles Coulomb UMR 5221, F-34095 Montpellier, France and CNRS, Laboratoire Charles Coulomb UMR 5221, F-34095 Montpellier, France.
Serge
S
Mora
Université Montpellier 2, Laboratoire Charles Coulomb UMR 5221, F-34095 Montpellier, France and CNRS, Laboratoire Charles Coulomb UMR 5221, F-34095 Montpellier, France.
Christelle
C
Dupas
Université Montpellier 2, Laboratoire Charles Coulomb UMR 5221, F-34095 Montpellier, France and CNRS, Laboratoire Charles Coulomb UMR 5221, F-34095 Montpellier, France.
Luca
L
Cipelletti