On the drying kinetics of non-spherical particle-filled polymer films: A
numerical study
Abstract
During the coating and drying of thin polymer-particle composites, the
particle geometry has a big impact on the prediction of concentration
profiles in the dry film. In this work, a plate-like geometry is used to
evaluate the mass transport of the particles with the aspect ratio as a
variable. The experimental determination of the viscosity and
sedimentation rates allows to simulate concentration profiles in the wet
film while drying. A previous simulation model was automatized to
describe the drying of the plate-like particles-polyvinyl alcohol-water
material system using COMSOL with the initial concentration, aspect
ratio, Péclet number, and Sedimentation number as input parameters. The
results are summarized in drying regime maps, which show an increase of
the evaporation regime, when the aspect ratio decreases due to lower
particle mobility. This shows the importance of the geometry while
predicting the particle distribution in the dry film and designing
coating and drying processes.