LAUSR

Abstract In this work, the effect of the exfoliation degree of montmorillonite (MMT) platelets on their electrophoretic mobility distributions in aqueous suspensions was investigated in order to approach into the correlation of MMT exfoliation with electrokinetic property. The experimental results have shown that the negative mobility increased with the increase of exfoliation degree or with the decrease of MMT thickness. This observation might be attributed to the “exposing” of permanent layer negative charge during the exfoliation processing and the “spillover” of electrostatic potential from basal surfaces onto edges. The former would increase the permanent negative charge of the MMT platelets because of the large amounts of layer charge; the latter would decrease the positive edge charge. It is demonstrated that MMT exfoliation would change the electrokinetic property, which might be helpful of the applications of MMT in the related industries.