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Compression Studies of Illite Suspensions¹

ABSTRACT

It can be shown that the classical Gouy-Chapman theory of the electric double layer formed on planar surfaces provides and acceptable means of predicting the "osmotic" pressure of clay suspensions for various particle spacings and electrolyte contents.

A compression apparatus was designed for the measurement of the swelling pressures of clay suspensions over the range 0.1 to 100 atm. The results obtained with this apparatus for a number of illite samples are consistent with those predicted by theory.

Consideration of the implications of these experiments for the mechanism of flocculation favors the following conclusions: (1) The attractive forces acting between clay particles in flocculated suspensions are probably a simple Coulombic attraction between negative and positive sites on the respective particles; (2) Van der Waal's forces are of no consequence in flocculation phenomena in the suspensions studied; (3) The energy of flocculation is small and cannot contribute significantly to the resistance of aggregates to mechanical breakdown.

¹ Contribution from the Department of Agronomy, Cornell University. Presented before Div. I, Soil Science Society of America, St. Paul, Minn., Nov. 11, 1954.

² Research Associate in Soil Physics and Associate Professor of Soil Physics, respectively.

Received for publication October 20, 1954.