Impact of mechanochemical treatment of organophilic Indian bentonites: implications for their rheology

Abstract

To study and determine the dependency of rheological properties and flow behaviour of organobentonites on mechanochemical modification viz. grinding and preparation temperature of organobentonite, stearyldimethylbenzylammonium-bentonites (SDMBA-bentonites) were prepared by interacting stearyldimethylbenzylammonium chloride with Indian bentonite at different reaction temperature of 40, 60, 80, 90 and 100 °C and the products were ground and passed through sieve (micronization) of 100 mesh BSS (< 150 µm) and also the product obtained at 40 °C was further processed for micronization using 150 (< 105 µm), 240 (< 63 µm) and 350 (< 45 µm) mesh BSS sieves. As there was increase in the micronization and the reaction temperature, the bulk density and particle size decreased with simultaneous increase in the surface area of SDMBA-bentonites. The enhancement of the viscosity, rheological parameters and gel index of the toluene dispersions of these SDMBA-bentonites was also observed. The decrease in particle size and bulk density with simultaneous increase in specific surface area and swelling in nitrobenzene SDMBA-bentonites leads to the formation of larger hydrogen bond network to generate improved rheological properties by increased magnitude of chemical interaction between SDMBA cations and toluene. The rheological behaviour study revealed that all the toluene–SDMBA-bentonite dispersions exhibit the shear-thinning flow behaviour and the micronization and reaction temperature influence the degree of shear-thinning, stability of the gel structures and yield stress of the dispersions. The incorporation of a mixture of 5 vol% of H2O in methanol as polar activator studied in the range of 33–100 wt% of SDMBA-bentonite reinforced the rheological properties, viscosity and gel volume, degree of shear-thinning, stability of the gel structures and yield stress of the toluene–SDMBA-bentonite dispersions. The SDMBA-bentonites with polar activator having concentration of 65 wt% exhibited the optimum rheological reinforcement. The rheological properties were found to be more enhanced by the ultrasonication relative to conventional stirring/shearing. Power law and Casson equations have been used to describe the rheological properties of the toluene–SDMBA-bentonite dispersions.