Understanding the adsorption of polymers on inorganic surfaces is critical in a variety of industrial applications including water treatment, pigmented architectural coating formulations, cement formulations, and pulp and paper manufacture.  For example, the removal of inorganic solids during water treatment is typically accomplished using high molecular weight polymeric flocculants, which are thought to remove clay particles by a bridging flocculation mechanism. However flocculation is a complex phenomenon affected by multiple variables such as clay species and surface charge, clay content, particle size, pH, polymer charge, and mixing conditions.  This paper describes the use of surface-sensitive methods such as atomic force microscopy, quartz crystal microbalance and small angle neutron scattering to provide insight into the interactions of model clay particles with high molecular weight polymers, and the morphology of the adsorbed polymer on the clay surface.  Unique high-throughput imaging methods are also leveraged to describe the clay settling rates using different flocculants.

Adsorption of high molecular weight polymers on clay surfaces

256th National Meeting (2018)

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