A bidimensional simulation of particle-cluster aggregation with variable active sites particles

Abstract

In this work a simple program has been developed which simulates the process of particle– cluster aggregation limited by diffusion. All the simulation have been carried out using 2d square lattices with square “particles” having a variable number of active inter-action sites (from 3 to 8) for each particle in order to analyze the effect of such limitation on the fractal dimension of the aggregates. The fractal dimension of such aggregates was calculated by the so-called “box counting” method. It has been shown that there is no change in the value of the fractal dimension (1.70) as the active site number is increased. Instead it appears that there is an average number of active sites of about 2.3 for all the structures no matter how many active interaction sites the particles have. This appears as an interesting result in connection with the aggregation of particles such as renneted casein micelles, which could present differences in the surface density of active sites.