Facile clay exfoliation using polymer silicone surfactants

A process for preparing a silicone surfactant intercalated clay, comprising the steps of:

• (a) obtaining a silicone surfactant, comprising PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) hydrophobic backbone having hydrophilic, side-chain functional groups, with a general formula of,
• wherein X is a hydrophilic component in a hydrophilic block and interacts with acidic —OH groups at the clay surfaces, m is an integer from 1 to 20, p is an integer from 10 to 100, R is C1-6 alkyl, m times p represents the molecular weight of the silicone surfactants in the range of 10,000 to 100,000 Dalton, wherein the position of the hydrophilic block containing X is distributed among the m dimethyl siloxane groups to provide a hydrophilic-hydrophobic block,
• (b) penetrating the silicone surfactant of (a) into the spacing of the clay layers in an aqueous medium by mixing the clay with a microemulsion of the silicone surfactant to form a clay-microemulsion mixture, and then adjusting the pH of the mixture within the range of pH 1-5,
• (c) heating the mixture of (b) to accelerate the penetration of the surfactant into the spacing of clay layers in an aqueous medium to form a silicone surfactant-clay slurry, and
• (d) removing excess water from the slurry and drying the slurry to form a silicone surfactant intercalated clay.