Effect of hydrodynamic interactions on rapid Brownian coagulation of colloidal dispersions

The rate of rapid Brownian coagulation is investigated for dispersions of spherical particles with particle volume fractions ranging from phi(p) = 0.003 to 0.1 by the direct numerical simulation method. This method explicitly considers hydrodynamic interactions (HIs) between particles by simultaneously solving for the motions of the dispersed particles and the host fluid. In the dilute limit, the rate of rapid Brownian coagulation decreases to approximately 0.3-0.5 times the theoretical Smoluchowski rate. We compare this result with results of previously reported experiments and theoretical predictions and find a strong correlation between them. This demonstrates that HIs between particles significantly reduce the coagulation rate. Moreover, the volume fraction dependence of the coagulation rate indicates that the coagulation rate increases with increasing volume fraction. At high particle volume fractions, the initial coagulation stage is affected by heterogeneous coagulation process before the steady state is reached.