Hyper-aging Dynamics of Nano-clay Suspension

TL;DR

This study investigates the long-term relaxation dynamics of nanoclay suspensions, revealing hyper-aging behavior that transitions to linear aging, using effective time theory and a scaling model to understand structural evolution.

Contribution

It introduces an effective time approach and a scaling model to analyze hyper-aging dynamics in nanoclay suspensions, providing new insights into their structural evolution.

Findings

Hyper-aging dominates at small idle times, then weakens to linear dependence.

Effective time superposition collapses creep curves across different aging states.

A simple energy well aging model captures experimental observations effectively.

Abstract

Aqueous suspension of nanoclay Laponite undergoes structural evolution as a function of time, which enhances its elasticity and relaxation time. In this work we employ effective time approach to investigate long term relaxation dynamics by carrying out creep experiments. Typically we observe that the monotonic evolution of elastic modulus shifts to lower aging times while maxima in viscous modulus gets progressively broader for experiments carried out on a later date since preparation (idle time) of nanoclay suspension. Application of effective time theory produces superposition of all the creep curves irrespective of their initial state. The resulting dependence of relaxation time on aging time shows very strong hyper aging dynamics at small idle times, which progressively weakens to demonstrate linear dependence in the limit of very large idle times. Remarkably this behavior of nanoclay suspension is akin to that observed for polymeric glasses. Consideration of aging as a first order process suggests that continued hyper-aging dynamics causes cessation of aging. The dependence of relaxation time on aging time, therefore, must attenuate eventually producing linear or weaker dependence on time in order to approach progressively low energy state in the limit of very large times as observed experimentally. We also develop a simple scaling model based on a concept of aging of an energy well, which qualitatively captures various experimental observations very well leading to profound insight into the hyper-aging dynamics of nano-clay suspensions.