하전 입자의 비구형 응집 성장에 대한 수치적 연구

Abstract

A numerical technique for simulating the aggregation of charged particles was presented with a Brownian dynamic simulation in the free molecular regime. The Langevin equation was used for tracking each particle making up an aggregate. A periodic boundary condition was used for calculation of the aggregation process in each cell with 500 primary particles of 16 nm in diameter. We considered the thermal force and the electrostatic force for the calculation of the particle motion. The electrostatic force on a particle in the simulation cell was considered as a sum of electrostatic forces from other particles in the original cell and its replicate cells. We assumed that the electric charges accumulated on an aggregate were located on its center of mass, and aggregates were only charged with pre-charged primary particles. The morphological shape of aggregates was described in terms of the fractal dimension. In the simulation, the fractal dimension for the uncharged aggregate was Df/ = 1.761. The fractal dimension changed slightly for the various amounts of bipolar charge. However, in case of unipolar charge, the fractal dimension decreased from 1.641 to 1.537 with the increase of the average number of charges on the particles from 0.2 to 0.3 in initial states. In the bipolar charge state, the average sizes of aggregates were larger than that of the uncharged state in the early and middle stages of aggregation process, but were almost the same as the case of the uncharged state in the final stage. On the other hand, in the unipolar charge state, the average size of aggregates and the dispersion of particle volume decreased with the increasing of the charge quantities.