Kinetics of clustering of carbon black suspensions by light scattering techniques

The aggregation kinetics of colloidal suspensions of nine carbon blacks in a viscous aliphatic solvent is studied. These carbon blacks differ in size and other physical properties. The fractal dimension and the size of the clusters are measured by the static and dynamic light scattering during the whole kinetics of growth. The time evolution of the mean mass of the aggregates is compared to the diffusion-limited colloidal aggregation and reaction limited colloidal aggregation models. It is found that, for the reduced times smaller than 1000, a good agreement is observed whereas, for longer times, the measured mass appears to increase faster than the theoretical predictions. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.