2006/09/19 by K. P. S. Parmar, Yves Méheust, Y. Meheust +11
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Clay minerals and soil interactions #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #NMR spectroscopy and applications #Polymer Nanocomposites and Properties #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0609488
28 pages, 4 figures, 1 table
arxiv created 2006/09/19 · openalex publication_date 2006/09/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Oil suspensions of fluorohectorite clay particles exhibit a dramatic meso-structural ordering when submitted to a strong electric field. This is due to dipolar interaction between polarized fluorohectorite particles, which orientate and aggregate to form chains and/or bundle-like structures along the direction of the applied electric field. We have used synchrotron small angle X-ray scattering to get insight into the nature of the porous medium in the bundles. Three types of fluorohectorite clay samples corresponding to three different intercalated cations Na+, Ni2+ and Fe3+ were studied. The two-dimensional SAXS images from bundles of fluorohectorites exhibit a marked anisotropy which is analyzed by fitting ellipses to iso-intensity lines of SAXS patterns. This also provides principal directions along which one-dimensional spectra are computed. They display a power law behavior typical of porous media, separated by crossovers. The crossovers are interpreted in terms of typical length scales for the clay particle bundles, providing for the first time a quantitative image of the 3D geometry inside such bundles of polarized clay particles. The exponents of the power laws indicate either predominant surface- (for 2 types of samples) or bulk- (for the last type) scattering, at all length scales investigated.