Electrorheological response of biocompatible chitosan particles in corn oil

We report on electrorheological (ER) properties of the suspensions containing chitosan particles in corn oil under various applied electric field strengths, finding that natural organic polymers such as chitosan possessing amino polar groups can effectively induce ER behavior. Chitosan-based ER fluids composed of both biocompatible polymer and suspending medium exhibited ER characteristics by showing an increased yield stress (τy) when electric field strength (E) and concentration of chitosan particle increase. We further found that τy∝E1.5 is consistent with the conduction model but not the polarization model, implying that our system has a smaller critical electric field strength.