Modeling nanoparticle aggregation

Abstract

The process of nanoparticle aggregation into highly porous structures is ubiquitous in nature and plays a crucial role in a number of nanotechnological applications, for instance, in the aerogel production. The details of the macroscopic structure assembled by the nanoparticles depend on the type of the inter-particle connections initiating the process. This chapter provides an overview of current investigations analyzing the effects which various types of inter-particle interactions have on the composition of the nanoparticle networks. Furthermore, it summarizes the methods applied to study reversible and irreversible network formation in computer simulations.