Unmodified clay nanosheets at the air − Water interface

MICHELS-BRITO, PAULO H.; CAVALCANTI, LEIDE P.; FOSSUM, JON OTTO; MALFATTI-GASPERINI, ANTONIO; MAYR, LINA; PUENTES-MARTINEZ, XIMENA; TENORIO, RÔMULO P.; WAGNER, DANIEL R.; KNUDSEN, KENNETH D.; ARAKI, KOITI; OLIVEIRA, RAFAEL G.; BREU, JOSEF

LANGMUIR

AMER CHEMICAL SOC

Año: 2020

0743-7463

uasi-two-dimensional (2D) nanolayers, such as graphene oxide or clay layers, adhere to gas−liquid or liquid−liquid interfaces. Particularly, clays are of wide general interest in this context because of their extensive and crucial use as Pickering emulsion stabilizers, as well as for their ability to provide colloidosome capsules. So far, clays could only be localized at oil−water or air−saline-water interfaces in aggregated states, while our results now show that clay nanosheets without any modification can be located at air−deionized-water interfaces. The clay mineral used in the present work is synthetic fluorohectorite with a very high aspect ratio and superior quality in homogeneity and charge distribution compared to other clay minerals. This clay mineral is more suitable for achieving unmodified clay anchoring to fluid interfaces compared to other clay minerals used in previous works. In this context, we studied clay nanosheet organization at the a