Interaction of polymer with clays

Normally synthetic well defined monodisperse discotic laponite clays are known to form a gel phase at mass concentrations as low as a few percent in distilled water. Hydrosoluble polymer polyethylene oxide was added to this intriguing clay system, it was observed that it either prevents gelation or slows it down extremely depending on the polymer weight, concentration or the laponite concentration. Small Angle Neutron scattering (SANS) was used to study these systems because only by isotopic labelling can the structure of the adsorbed polymer layers be determined. The contrast variation technique is specifically used to determine separately the different partial structure factors of the clay and polymer. In this way the signal of the adsorbed chains is separated from the signal of the free chains.