Conrad, J. C. Wyss, H. M. Trappe, Véronique Manley, S. Miyazaki, K. Kaufman, L. J. Schofield, A. B. Reichman, D. R. Weitz, D. A. 2010-04-12 We investigate the structural, dynamical, and rheological properties of colloid-polymer mixtures in a volume fraction range of Φ=0.15–0.35. Our systems are density-matched, residual charges are screened, and the polymer-colloid size ratio is ~0.37. For these systems, the transition to kinetically arrested states, including disconnected clusters and gels, coincides with the fluid-fluid phase separation boundary. Structural investigations reveal that the characteristic length, <i>L</i>, of the networks is a strong function of the quench depth: for shallow quenches, <i>L</i> is significantly larger than that obtained for deep quenches. By contrast, <i>L</i> is for a given quench depth almost independent of Φ; this indicates that the strand thickness increases with Φ. The strand thickness determines the linear rheology: the final relaxation time exhibits a strong dependence on Φ, whereas the high frequency modulus does not. We present a simple model based on estimates of the strand breaking time and shear modulus that semiquantitatively describes the observed behavior. application/pdf https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/301521 https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/301521/files/tra_aff.pdf eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1122/1.3314295 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess License undefined Journal of Rheology. - 2010, vol. 54, no. 2, p. 421-438 Colloids Phase separation Polymer blends Polymer gels Quenching (thermal) Rheology Shear modulus info:eu-repo/classification/udc/53 Arrested fluid-fluid phase separation in depletion systems: Implications of the characteristic length on gel formation and rheology http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501