Connecting Irreversible to Reversible Aggregation: Time and Temperature

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.

Silvia Corezzi, Cristiano De Michele, Emanuela Zaccarelli, Piero Tartaglia, Francesco Sciortino · 2009