Hierarchical self-assembly, spongy architecture, liquid crystalline behaviour and phase diagram of Laponite nanoplatelets in alcohol-water binary solvents

Journal of Colloid and Interface Science
Ravi Kumar Pujala, H B Bohidar

Abstract

Hydrophobicity and solvation of different charged species are among the various key factors that regulate the self-assembly of colloids, and macromolecules in their suspensions. In this paper, we demonstrate a method to tune the interaction potential and the resulting phase behaviour and microstructure of the states that form by using a combination of Laponite nanoplatelets and alcohols in water. This allows us to exquisitely control the self-assembly process of Laponite nanoplatelets. A new class of soft materials, called nanoclay-organogels, is studied systematically for their aging behaviour, microscopic structure and mechanical properties. Real space imaging techniques depicted spongy architecture with nano and micron size pores inside the gel matrix indicating the hierarchical self-assembly of the nanoplatelets in the aqueous solutions of polar organics. We have extensively examined the dispersion stability, aggregation, gelation and liquid crystalline behaviour of Laponite nanoplatelets in different alcohol (methanol, ethanol, 1-proponaol and ethylene glycol, and glycerol)-water binary solvents, thereby proposing a generalized description of nanoclay in alcoholic solutions, which is poorly probed and marginally understood...Continue Reading

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