A unifying model for chemical and colloidal gels

TL;DR

This paper presents a minimal lattice model that unifies the understanding of chemical and colloidal gelation, revealing a crossover in dynamics and connecting classical gelation theories with colloidal system behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces a unifying statistical mechanics model that captures the transition from chemical to colloidal gelation dynamics.

Findings

Demonstrates a crossover from chemical to colloidal gelation behavior.

Establishes a connection between Flory's classical gelation and colloidal systems.

Uses Monte Carlo simulations to explore gelation dynamics.

Abstract

We investigate the slow dynamics in gelling systems by means of MonteCarlo simulations on the cubic lattice of a minimal statistical mechanics model. By opportunely varying some model parameter we are able to describe a crossover from the chemical gelation behaviour to dynamics more typical of colloidal systems. The results suggest a novel connection linking classical gelation, as originally described by Flory, to more recent results on colloidal systems.