The Role of Hydrogen Bonding and Solvent Molecule Conformation in Shear Jamming

Previous work on dense suspensions has shown that frictional interactions between particles underpin thickening and jamming under shear, and that interparticle hydrogen bonding mediated by solvent molecules can tune this effective friction. However, the nature of the coupling between the structure of the hydrogen-bond network in the suspension and its macroscopic flow behavior has yet to be studied systematically. We tune the strength of hydrogen bonding in our suspensions by using a series of diol solvents with different carbon chain lengths, and measure the resulting macroscopic rheology and tensile behavior. We find that an increase in the chain length promotes the interaction between solvent molecules. This, in turn, lowers the propensity of particle-solvent interaction and thus leads to a drastic change in thickening and jamming behaviors. This highlights how changes in solvent molecule interactions can affect the macroscopic-scale non-Newtonian rheology.