Rheological characteristics of non-spherical graphite suspensions

Since the microstructure of functional thin films depends on the dispersion characteristics of dense slurry, it is important to control the agglomerative nature of slurries under processing. The present authors have been discussing the model prediction of agglomerative nature and local rate of agglomeration in dense suspensions. The experiments have been peformed under shear flow using the nearly spherical and oblate type graphite particles. In this study, the experiment has been conducted using water and glycerol as dispersion media. Stress control type rheometer was used to measure the slurry rheology. Local agglomeration of graphite particles has been predicted by using Usui's model. The experimental results show that both the shape and slurry processing method affect on the local dispersion condition. The agglomeration formed by oblate type graphite particles seems to be more difficult to break up than that of spherical particles.