Electrorheological performance of multigram-scale mesoporous silica particles with different aspect ratios

Abstract

Mesoporous silica (mSiO₂) particle-based electrorheological (ER) fluids were examined to determine the effect of the particles’ aspect ratio on ER performance. Multigram-scale mSiO₂ particles were fabricated with different aspect ratios using the sol–gel method. The ER performance of various mSiO₂ particle-based ER fluids improved with an increasing aspect ratio due to the better flow resistance and mechanical stability. Moreover, an incremental increase in the aspect ratio enhanced the interfacial polarization of the material. Thus, mSiO₂ materials with a high aspect ratio exhibited the highest ER performance due to combined contributions from geometrical effects and their dielectric properties. In addition, various mSiO₂-based ER fluids showed potential for large-scale production and a wide applicable range of electric field strengths (up to 10.0 kV mm⁻¹).