Studies on the thixotropic and viscoelastic properties of HTlc/MT suspensions

In this paper, we found that the variation content of Fe3+ in the Fe–Al–Mg hydrotalcite-like compounds (HTlc) and the change of R values (R = WHTlc/WMT) will influence the thixotropic and viscoelastic properties of HTlc/sodium montmorillonite (MT) suspensions. With increasing the content of Fe3+ in the HTlc samples, the storage modulus (G′) and the loss modulus (G″) of the HTlc/MT suspensions will increase gradually, meaning that the structure strength of the HTlc/MT suspension increases with increasing of Fe3+ content in the HTlc samples. Similar results have been found in studying the influence of R values: the structure strength of the suspensions will increase with increasing of R values. Special emphasis has been laid on the phenomenon of thixotropy. With the gradual increase of the structure strength in the HTlc/MT suspension, the thixotropic types will change accordingly. The mechanism has been emphatically discussed in this paper.