8th Liquid Matter Conference September 6-10, 2011 Wien, Austria ...

P9.62Tue 611:23-14:00Adsorption of polydisperse soft shell nanoparticles onliquid interfaces: a numerical studyKonrad Schwenke, 1 Emanuela Del Gado, 1 and Lucio Isa 11 ETH Zürich, Institute of Building Materials, Schafmattstrasse 6 8093, Zürich,SwitzerlandNanoparticles at liquid-liquid interfaces have stirred great interest as potential building blocks forthe self-assembly of functional materials in two dimensions. Recent advances in the synthesis ofcore-shell nanoparticles with a hard core and a soft shell of grafted polymer chains offer a newmaterial for self-assembling structures at interfaces [1]. We present numerical data investigatingthe adsorption of polydisperse soft shell particles towards the liquid interface. The nanoparticlesare modeled via a repulsive potential which allows partial overlap of particles and represents agood compromise between numerical simplicity and the aim to model the experimental system.The motion of particles at the interface is simulated via Molecular Dynamics whereas we use aGrand Canonical Monte Carlo scheme to model the process of adsorption and desorption [2]. Itis elucidated how the characteristics of the adsorption process depend on the adsorption energyand the influx of particles and how the size distribution of adsorbed particles changes during thisprocess [3].[1] L. Isa, E. Amstad, M. Textor, E. Reimhult, Chimia, 2010, 64, 145.[2] D. Frenkel and B. Smit, Understanding Molecular Simulation, Academic press, 2002[3] L. Isa, E. Amstad, K. Schwenke, E. Del Gado, P. Ilg, M. Kröger and E. Reimhult, accepted forpublication, Soft Matter, 201162