Polar-molecules-driven enhanced colloidal electrostatic interactions and their applications in achieving high active electrorheological materials

We have fabricated a class of colloidal electrorheological (ER) fluids, in which suspended TiO₂ particles were synthesized by a sol-gel method and modified by 1,4-butyrolactone molecules with a permanent molecular dipole moment of 4.524 D. Compared with pure TiO₂ ER fluids, the quasi-static yield stress of the polar- molecules-modified ER fluid is enhanced as high as 48.1 kPa when subjected to an external electric field of 5 kV/mm. Also, it possesses other attractive characters such as low current density (<14 μA/cm²) and low sedimentation. Based on a Green’s function method, we present a first-principles approach to investigate colloidal electrostatic interactions. Excellent agreement between experiment and theory has been shown for the enhancement ratio of quasi-static yield stress, which quantitatively reveals that enough polar molecules oriented within the field-directed gap between the colloidal particles can unexpectedly enhance the interactions, thus yielding the unusual enhancement. This shows a promising and flexible direction for achieving more highly active ER materials.