Revista de Engenharia Civil e Ambiental

A New Exploration of Natural Clay Mineral in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Refat El-Sheikhy

New nano tube clay has been explored in Saudi Arabia soil. It is green natural nanoclay of two dimensional nano particles having special properties and special dimensions. It is similar to halloysite but different where it can be called as halloysite-like clay nanotubes CNTs. The particles are transparent clearly where other particles can be seen through it. It has a special cross section which is almost not circular but near to be polygonal like hexagonal shape. Dimensions are unique where external width equals almost (20 nm-30 nm) while length is (50 nm-600 nm). Internal width of the lumen seems larger than other type of conventional halloysite with wall thickness less than other type. It can be used as nano containers. Surface area is larger than surface area of halloysite clay since surface area of conventional halloysite is 65 m²/gm while current clay nano tubes surface area is (168 m²/gm). It can be bent with a slight curvature because its inertia is large which means that the clay tubes will be always straight while in case of bending it will be bent with curve of large diameter. The new CNTs geometry, dimensions, microstructure, chemical composition, surface area and zeta potential have been characterized using SEM, TEM, EDS, langmuir surface area and ZP.