title: First isolation of individual silicate platelets from clay exfoliation and their unique self-assembly into fibrous arrays.
abstract: Thin silicate platelets in a dimension of approximately 80 x 80 x 1 nm(3) are isolated for the first time by a newly developed process involving one-step exfoliation of natural montmorillonite clay and toluene/aqueous NaOH extraction. The platelets are observed to be polygon shape by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and round bent-leaf shape by dynamic force microscopy (DFM). Individual platelets possessing high-aspect-ratio dimension and ionic character are able to self-assemble into microscale fiber bundles after water evaporation. The self-stacking mechanism indicated strong face-to-face ionic charge stacking propensity in triggering a vertical growth. Regularity of fibrous bundles in an average 5 microm length has been observed.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. jianglin@ntu.edu.tw
authors.forename: Jiang-Jen
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Chien-Chia
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.forename: Ming-Li
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Chiang
authors.forename: Wei-Cheng
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Tsai