Stabilization of colloidal silica using polyols

We have discovered that small polyols are reasonably effective at stabilizi ng colloidal silica against aggregation, even under the conditions of high PH and salt concentration. Both quasielastic and elastic light scattering w ere used to show that these polyols dramatically decrease the aggregation r ate of the suspension, changing the growth kinetics from diffusion-limited cluster-cluster aggregation to reaction-limited cluster-cluster aggregation . These polyols may be useful in the treatment of tank wastes at the Hanfor d site. (C) 2001 Academic Press.