Structural Characteristics of Aqueous Dispersions of Detonation Nanodiamond and Their Aggregate Fractions as Revealed by Small-Angle Neutron Scattering

Abstract

Small-angle neutron scattering was applied for the structure characterization of commercial detonation nanodiamond (DND) suspensions. Two reproducible structural levels corresponding to DND particles (characteristic size ≈ 4 nm) and their developed clusters (characteristic size ≈ 100 nm) showed high size polydispersity. The contrast variation (based on mixtures of light and heavy water) was used to check up the inner structure of DND particles and compare it with the data of the previous analogous experiments. The fractal nature of the observed clusters is discussed in terms of a unique mechanism of the cluster growth in DND suspensions during their synthesis. The structural peculiarities of “light” and “heavy” cluster fractions separated by centrifugation showed the same cluster type at different size scale. The structure–factor effect on the scattering from the concentrated suspensions of “light” and “heavy” clusters is considered to characterize the cluster–cluster interaction in solutions.