A Thermodynamic View of Agglomeration

Abstract

We report an entirely new view of solutions containing agglomerated nanoparticles, colloids or other particulates. Assuming their stability (a previously solved problem), we use a maximum entropy of mixing approach to predict the distribution of monomers, dimers, trimers, etc., in a solution of minimally interacting particles. The predictions are close to experiment, which approximates a log-normal distribution. We further consider the perturbations when interparticle forces operate and predict the resulting agglomerate size distributions.