Effect of nanoscale confinement on dielectric relaxations in a 3wt.% water-galactose mixture

Abstract

We studied the effect of nanoscale confinement on dielectric relaxations in a water-galactose mixture with 3 wt.% water content (WGMIX) in the temperature range that covered the supercooled and the glassy states. We used a confining matrix with nanoporous of 3.5 nm, 8 nm, and 18 nm. For pore sizes of 3.5 nm and 8 nm, the α-relaxation process in the confined WGMIX was significantly accelerated compared to that in bulk WGMIX and approached the Johari-Goldstein (JG) β-relaxation process as the pore size decreased. The correlation length predicted by the number of correlation unit theory is an order of a few nanometers and is consistent with our results. In addition, the stretched exponent of the α-relaxation decreased with decreasing as predicted by the coupling model.