Interaction of nonionic polymers at a clay interface.

The structure and dynamics at the interface of swelling clays (smectites) are crucial to such diverse applications as drilling for oil, cosmetics, paints, water treatment, or chemical reactions. From our previous NMR studies on clay suspensions, we have shown how the orientation of interfacial molecules is affected by the clay structure1, by the nature of counterions 2, or by the composition of the liquid phase3. These results have been mainly obtained from the analysis of residual quadrupolar splittings of nuclei from interfacial species. In this work, we report our studies on a clay montmorillonite suspended in aqueous solutions of non ionic polymers. The polymer perturbs the structure within the interfacial region as deduced from the variations of the splittings of water quadrupolar nuclei and of sodium-23 relaxation parameters in terms of the polymer concentration. Proton self-diffusion coefficients and carbon-13 relaxation times are measured to describe the influence of the clay on the polymer mobility. The dependence of the polymer nature on these parameters is also investigated.