Clay minerals have been used in medicinal applications since Aboriginal times (Carretaro, 2002; Wilson, 2003). Clay poultices are used to heal wounds; people eat clays to coat stomach linings and soothe indigestion; animals eat clay containing trace elements (e.g., As) that can kill worms. The reasons that various clay minerals are effective as medicines may be as variable as the ailment, but b...

Composites based on high density polyethylene (HDPE), pine flour, and organic clay were made by melt compounding and then injection molding. The influence of clay on crystallization behavior, mechanical properties, water absorption, and thermal stability of HDPE/pine composites was investigated. The HDPE/pine composites containing exfoliated clay were made by a two-step melt compounding procedu...

Soil bulk density (BD), degree of compactness (DC), maximum bulk density (MBD), and critical water content (CWC) at which MBD is reached are commonly used to characterize soil compaction, and can be predicted from soil texture and organic matter content, omitting other components such as sand sub-classes and soil cementing agents and potential biases such as data redundancy and sub-compositiona...

Clay from deposit Bilalovac, Central Bosnia, was characterized by chemical, IR, XRD and DTA/TG analysis. The major mineral components are kaolinite, illite, muscovite and quartz. Raw clay may be used for pottery products and terracotta. Clay was beneficiated by wet method removing fraction over 20 μm. Beneficiation process increased content of kaolinite and decreased content of quartz. Benefici...

High resolution (<10 nm) transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-®ltering TEM (EFTEM), and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) have been used for the direct microstructural imaging and analysis of clay-organic matter aggregates in ®ne-grained aquatic sediments from Jourdan River Estuary, MS, USA. EFTEM and EELS allow rapid, high-resolution spatial mapping and analysis of light eleme...

Some organisms disperse energy, associated with the transportation of resource, which is not necessarily food. Stingless bees of Central Amazonia (Melipona flavolineata and M. lateralis) collect clay in banks along streams for nest building. The moisture of the clay varies along the bank, and bees collect clay from specific location, indicating that there is some sort of preference regarding th...

Sodium montmorillonite (Na-MMT) clay was modified with three different unnatural amino acids in order to design intercalated clay structures that may be used for bone biomaterials applications. Prior work on polymer-clay nanocomposites (PCNs) has indicated the effect of the appropriate choice of modifiers on enhancing properties of PCNs. Our X-ray diffraction results indicate an increase in the...

Define a mixture with volume V containing a certain amount of clay (Vc) and sand (Vs), i.e. V = Vc + Vs. The intrinsic porosity of the clay is φc, defined as the ratio of pore volume in the clay V c p to the volume of clay, i.e. φc = V c p /Vc, and the intrinsic porosity of sand is φs = V s p /Vs. The surface areas of the pores in the clay and in the sand are noted S p and S s p respectively. S...

Metal ions present on smectite clay (montmorillonite) platelets have preferential reactivity towards peroxy/alkoxy groups during polyamide 6 (PA6) thermal decomposition. This changes the decomposition pathway and negatively affects the ignition response of PA6. To restrict these interfacial interactions, high-temperature-resistant polymers such as polyetherimide (PEI) and polyimide (PI) were us...