IMPEDANCE SPECTROSCOPY OF COLLOIDAL SUSPENSIONS

INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the interaction of the AC electric fields with colloidal particles
has been explored using AC electrokinetic methods which are augmenting the
classical impedance methods. These methods have been developed by
considering both electrostatic surface forces of charged particles and the
associated electrical double layer. Although, various theoretical and experimental
work have been previously done to study the electrokinetic behaviour of particles
in infinite dilution limit. However, the dielectric dispersion subjected to the
concentrated suspensions, that are of increased technological interest, is the key
challenge where particle polarizability, can further be addressed by considering
the counterionic double layer polarization in short ranged interaction.
A dielectric (or dielectric material) is an electrical insulator that can be polarized
by an applied electric field. When a dielectric is placed in an electric field, electric
charges do not flow through the material as they do in an electrical conductor
but only slightly shift from their average equilibrium positions causing dielectric
polarization. Because of dielectric polarization, positive charges are displaced in
the direction of the field and negative charges shift in the direction opposite to
the field (for example, if the field is moving in the positive x-axis, the negative
charges will shift in the negative x-axis). This creates an internal electric field
that reduces the overall field within the dielectric itself.[1] If a dielectric is
composed of weakly bonded molecules, those molecules not only become
polarized, but also reorient so that their symmetry axes align to the field.
In physics, dielectric dispersion is the dependence of the permittivity of a
dielectric material on the frequency of an applied electric field. Because there is
a lag between changes in polarization and changes in the electric field, the
permittivity of the dielectric is a complicated function of frequency of the
electric field. Dielectric dispersion is very important for the applications of
dielectric materials and for the analysis of polarization systems.

When the frequency becomes higher:

1. dipolar polarization can no longer follow the oscillations of the electric

field in the microwave region around 1010 Hz;
 2. ionic polarization and molecular distortion polarization can no longer
track the electric field past the infrared or far-infrared region around 1013
Hz, ;
3. electronic polarization loses its response in the ultraviolet region around
1015 Hz.

In the frequency region above ultraviolet, permittivity approaches the constant

ε0 in every substance, where ε0 is the permittivity of the free space. Because
permittivity indicates the strength of the relation between an electric field and
polarization, if a polarization process loses its response, permittivity decreases.

Dielectric relaxation is the momentary delay (or lag) in the dielectric constant
of a material. This is usually caused by the delay in molecular polarization with
respect to a changing electric field in a dielectric medium. The time lag between
electrical field and polarization implies an irreversible degradation of Gibbs free
energy. In physics, dielectric relaxation refers to the relaxation response of a
dielectric medium to an external, oscillating electric field. This relaxation is often
described in terms of permittivity as a function of frequency, which can, for ideal
systems, be described by the Debye equation.
Asymptotic analysis is the evaluation of the performance of an algorithm in terms
of just the input size (N), where N is very large. It gives you an idea of the limiting
behaviour of an application, and hence is very important to measure the
performance of the code. Asymptotic analysis of an algorithm refers to defining
the mathematical boundation/framing of its run-time performance. Asymptotic
analysis is input bound i.e., if there's no input to the algorithm, it is concluded to
work in a constant time. Other than the "input" all other factors are considered
constant.

Asymptotic analysis is used in several mathematical sciences. In statistics, asymptotic theory

provides limiting approximations of the probability distribution of sample statistics, such as
the likelihood ratio statistic and the expected value of the deviance. Asymptotic theory does
not provide a method of evaluating the finite-sample distributions of sample statistics,
however. Non-asymptotic bounds are provided by methods of approximation theory.

Examples of applications are the following.

 In applied mathematics, asymptotic analysis is used to build numerical methods to

approximate equation solutions.
 In mathematical statistics and probability theory, asymptotics are used in analysis of long-
run or large-sample behaviour of random variables and estimators.
 in computer science in the analysis of algorithms, considering the performance of
algorithms.
 the behavior of physical systems, an example being statistical mechanics.
 in accident analysis when identifying the causation of crash through count modeling with
large number of crash counts in a given time and space.

In chemical engineering asymptotic analysis is a key tool for exploring the

ordinary and partial differential equations which arise in the mathematical
modelling of real-world phenomena. An illustrative example is the derivation of
the boundary layer equations from the full Navier-Stokes equations governing
fluid flow. In many cases, the asymptotic expansion is in power of a small
parameter, ε: in the boundary layer case, this is the non dimensional ratio of the
boundary layer thickness to a typical length scale of the problem. Indeed,
applications of asymptotic analysis in mathematical modelling often center
around a non dimensional parameter which has been shown, or assumed, to be
small through a consideration of the scales of the problem at hand.

In mathematics, a singular perturbation problem is a problem containing a small

parameter that cannot be approximated by setting the parameter value to zero.
More precisely, the solution cannot be uniformly approximated by an asymptotic
expansion.

Methods of analysis
A perturbed problem whose solution can be approximated on the whole
problem domain, whether space or time, by a single asymptotic expansion
has a regular perturbation. Most often in applications, an acceptable
approximation to a regularly perturbed problem is found by simply
replacing the small parameter by zero everywhere in the problem
statement. This corresponds to taking only the first term of the expansion,
yielding an approximation that converges, perhaps slowly, to the true
solution as decreases.
The solution to a singularly perturbed problem cannot be approximated in
this way: As seen in the examples below, a singular perturbation generally
occurs when a problem's small parameter multiplies its highest operator.
Thus naively taking the parameter to be zero changes the very nature of
the problem. In the case of differential equations, boundary conditions
cannot be satisfied; in algebraic equations, the possible number of
solutions is decreased are examples of singular perturbative problems.
Singular perturbation theory is a rich and ongoing area of exploration for
mathematicians, physicists, and other researchers. The methods used to
tackle problems in this field are many. The more basic of these include
the method of matched asymptotic expansions and approximation for
spatial problems, and in time.