Geometrical study of electrorheological activity with shape-controlled titania-coated silica nanomaterials

The titania-coated silica nanomaterials with three different shapes (nanosphere, nanorod, nanotube) are fabricated to examine the influence of particle geometry on ER fluid in nanometer-size region. The effect of particle geometry on ER activity is studied by varying the geometric aspect ratio of dispersing materials. The ER activities of titania-coated silica nanomaterials exhibit a dependence on their aspect ratio. Interestingly, the shear stress of titania-coated silica nanomaterials based ER fluids increases with increasing the aspect ratio. Geometrical study is performed to give deep insights into the primary factors that determine the ER activity. It is believed that the geometrical effect originated from high aspect ratio played a dominant role in enhancing the performance of ER fluid. Furthermore, the dielectric property analysis based on dielectric loss model clarifies that an increase in aspect ratio has been coupled with the larger achievable polarizability and short relaxation time of interfacial polarization. Consequently, the increment in aspect ratio has strong influence on ER activity, provides outstanding enhancement in shear stress value of titania-coated silica nanotube based ER fluid. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.