Delayed gravitational collapse of attractive colloidal suspensions

Abstract

Colloidal gels have strong industrial relevance as they can behave as liquids or solids. The latter allows them to support a buoyant weight against gravity. However, the system is intrinsically out of equilibrium, which means that the colloids must eventually settle out of the suspension. The process of settling has been captured theoretically, but the presence of a delay time during which the gel appears relatively unaffected by gravity has not. Here, we modify existing frameworks to capture this delay, by treating the gel as a continuum with viscous response that is based on the local bond density. We can solve our model numerically to obtain the evolution of the colloid density profile and recover qualitatively the accumulation of a dense layer on top of the settling gel, as is observed experimentally in depletion gels. This numerical study is complemented by a theoretical analysis that allows us to identify an emergent time and length scale that set the dynamics of the gel. Our model provides a solid foundation for future studies that incorporate hydrodynamic erosion and tackle industrially relevant geometries.