Formation and liquid permeability of dense colloidal cube packings

The liquid permeability of dense random packings of cubic colloids with rounded corners is studied for solid hematite cubes and hollow microporous silica cubes. The permeabilities of these two types of packings are similar, confirming that the micropores in the silica shell of the hollow cubes do not contribute to the permeability. From the Brinkman screening length root k of similar to 16 nm, we infer that the relevant pores are indeed intercube pores. Furthermore, we relate the permeability to the volume fraction and specific solid volume of the cubes using the Kozeny-Carman relation. The Kozeny-Carman relation contains a constant that accounts for the topology and size distribution of the pores in the medium. The constant obtained from our study with aspherical particles is of the same order of magnitude as those from studies with spherical and ellipsoidal particles, which supports the notion that the Kozeny-Carman relation is applicable for any dense particle packing with (statistically) isotropic microstructures, irrespective of the particle shape.