Connecting Irreversible to Reversible Aggregation: Time and Temperature

Corezzi, Silvia; De Michele, Cristiano; Zaccarelli, Emanuela; Tartaglia, Piero; Sciortino, Francesco

Connecting Irreversible to Reversible Aggregation: Time and Temperature

Authors

Corezzi, Silvia

De Michele, Cristiano

Zaccarelli, Emanuela

Tartaglia, Piero

Sciortino, Francesco

Description

We report molecular dynamics simulations of a gel-forming mixture of ellipsoidal patchy particles with different functionality. We show that in this model, which disfavors the formation of bond-loops, elapsed time during irreversible aggregation -- leading to the formation of an extended network -- can be formally correlated with equilibrium temperature in reversible aggregation. We also show that it is possible to develop a parameter-free description of the self-assembly kinetics, bringing reversible and irreversible aggregation of loopless branched systems to the same level of understanding as equilibrium polymerization.
5 pages, 4 figures