INTRODUCTION THE NAME illite was proposed by Grim, Bray and Bradley in 1937 for the mica-type mineral occurring in argillaceous sediments. It was specifically stated that "the term is not proposed as a specific mineral name, but as a general term for the clay mineral constituent of argillaceous sediments belonging to the mica group". Abundant research has shown that many soils, clays and shales...

The Chaco leaf-cutting ant Atta vollenweideri is native to the clay-heavy soils of the Gran Chaco region in South America. Because of seasonal floods, colonies are regularly exposed to varying moisture across the soil profile, a factor that not only strongly influences workers' digging performance during nest building, but also determines the suitability of the soil for the rearing of the colon...

The demand for robust hydrogels in pharmaceutical, biomedical, and industrial applications has motivated intense research efforts in these wet polymeric materials. Recent advances have resulted in different strategies for creating highly stretchable polymeric hydrogels, including sliding-ring gels (SR gels), nanocomposite gels (NC gels), doublenetwork gels (DN gels), macromolecular microsphere ...

In spite of the advent of new materials, clay bricks remain, arguably, the most popular construction materials today. Nevertheless the low cost and versatility of clay bricks cannot always be associated with high environmental and sustainable values, especially in terms of raw material sources and manufacturing processes. At the same time, the worldwide agricultural footprint is fast growing, w...

The aim of the thesis is to develop a numerical model based on first principles for the simulation of change of size of soil pores during drying of soft soil. This model is suitable for the type of soil consisting of clay with layered structure, such as Montmorillonite. In this study, the geometry of the soil pore is idealized by a triangle consisting of three sand grains and clay fabrics conne...

The quality of the clays and over all kaolin is measured in function of iron content, since this element gives an undesirable reddish color to this type of minerals. The use of chlorination for iron and titanium removal from different clay and kaolin minerals, used in Argentinian ceramic industry, has been investigated to establish reaction mechanisms, precautions and optimal conditions to blea...

An in-situ Porewater Chemistry (PC) experiment in the Opalinus Clay formation was carried out at the Mont Terri underground rock laboratory (Jura Mountains, Switzerland) for a period of five years. A traced water with a composition close to that expected in the formation was continuously circulated and monitored in a packed-off borehole to achieve diffusive equilibration. An unwanted microbial ...

Brittleness and other properties such as low thermal stability, medium gas barrier properties and low solvent resistance (e.g., against water) of the pure biopolymer film are often insufficient for food packaging applications. The nanoscale distribution of nanoclays (such as montmorillonite, saponite or hectorite), with a high aspect ratio (100-1,500) and extremely high surface-to-volume ratio ...