Rheology of giant micelles

By Michael E. Cates, S. Fielding. 2006

310 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Giant micelles are elongated, polymer-like objects created by the self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules (such as detergents) in solution. Giant micelles are typically flexible, and can become highly entangled even at modest concentrations. The resulting viscoelastic solutions show fascinating flow behaviour (rheology) which we address theoretically in this article at two levels. First, we summarize advances in understanding linear viscoelastic spectra and steady-state nonlinear flows, based on microscopic constitutive models that combine the physics of polymer entanglement with the reversible kinetics of self-assembly. Such models were first introduced two decades ago, and since then have been shown to explain robustly several distinctive features of the rheology in the strongly entangled regime, including extreme shear thinning. We then turn to more complex rheological phenomena, particularly involving spatial heterogeneity, spontaneous oscillation, instability and chaos. Recent understanding of these complex flows is based largely on grossly simplified models which capture in outline just a few pertinent microscopic features, such as coupling between stresses and other order parameters such as concentration. The role of ‘structural memory’ (the dependence of structural parameters such as the micellar length distribution on the flow history) in explaining these highly nonlinear phenomena is addressed. Structural memory also plays an intriguing role in the little-understood shear thickening regime, which occurs in a concentration regime close to but below the onset of strong entanglement, and which is marked by a shear-induced transformation from an inviscid to a gelatinous state.

Subfields: Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes, Materials Chemistry, Organic Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2f4e12dc0758392ff327b9b8201aa30e8e173f8c

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In Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes

1. S. Lerouge
2. J. Berret
3. T. Divoux
4. M. Fardin
5. S. Haward
6. T. Ober
7. Johannes M. Soulages
8. C. Pipe

In Materials Chemistry

1. S. Manneville
2. S. Lerouge
3. J. Berret
4. G. H. McKinley
5. T. Divoux
6. M. Fardin
7. G. Ovarlez

In Organic Chemistry

1. S. Manneville
2. S. Lerouge
3. J. Berret
4. G. H. McKinley
5. T. Divoux
6. M. Fardin

Citations in the corpus

• Shear-Induced Transitions and Instabilities in Surfactant Wormlike Micelles (2009, methodology): “Using the diffusive Johnson-Segalman (DJS) model, Fielding et al. demonstrated that a coupling between mechanical and structural variables such as the concentration or the micellar length can qualitatively reproduce the irregular time-variations of the stress (or shear rate) leading to rheochaos [22”
• Microfluidic extensional rheometry using a hyperbolic contraction geometry (2013, background): “5 s−1 this fluid exhibits a pronounced stress plateau, a feature which is indicative of shear banding (Cates and Fielding 2006).”
• Shear Banding of Complex Fluids (2015, methodology): “We have already mentioned that the tube-like models with all their modern additions can predict shear banding in entangled polymeric fluids [103] and wormlike micelles [27].”
• Gradient and vorticity banding (2008, background): “…comprehensive overview of the existing literature; Vermant (2003), where shearinduced bundles and strings, as well as near-critical and weakly aggregated colloids are discussed; and Cates and Fielding (2006) and Berret (2005), which extensively discuss the rheology and banding of micellar systems.”