Montmorillonite - Sodium & Calcium Variants, High Swelling & Gelling Properties, Versatile Applications In Oil Drilling, Agriculture, And Environmental Solutions

Montmorillonite is an absorbent aluminium phyllosilicate, consisting mostly of montmorillonite. These are three layered Aluminosilicate with molecules of water between layers.

For industrial purposes, two main classes of montmorillonite exist:
1) Sodium montmorillonite
Sodium montmorillonite expands when wet, possibly absorbing several times its dry mass in water. Because of its excellent colloidal properties it is often used in drilling mud for oil and gas wells and for geotechnical and environmental investigations. The property of swelling also makes sodium montmorillonite useful as a sealant, especially for the sealing of subsurface disposal systems for spent nuclear fuel and for quarantining metal pollutants of groundwater. In fact in all montmorillonites available in the world, the sodium variety has high swelling and gelling properties along with good viscosity and liquid limit.

2)Calcium montmorillonite

Calcium montmorillonite is a useful adsorbent of ions in solution.as well as fats and oils, being a main active ingredient of Fuller's Earth.

Applications of Montmorillonite :-
1) Oil Well Drilling
2) Foundry
3) Animal Feed
4) Iron Ore Pellatization
5) Agriculture Carrier
6) Pet Litter
7) Pesticides Carrier
8) Food grade for humans