Effect of ultrasonic treatment on clay microfabric evaluation by atomic force microscopy

Researchers previously thought the only ways to investigate the microfabric of clayey soil were through a scanning electron microscope (SEM), a transmission electron microscope (TEM), an X-ray, and an optical microscope. However, in this research, ultrasonic equipment was used to disperse clayey soils (bentonite, illite, and kaolinite) for different lengths of time. After dispersion, an atomic force microscope (AFM) was employed to take three-dimensional (3D) photographs. While the samples were intact, AFM was able to take 3D photographs in different environments. The IA_P9_BUILD software was employed to analyze the data to obtain the angle of particle orientation and the particle size distribution. In this investigation, it was observed that with the use of an ultrasonic device with 30 KHz of power, bentonite, illite, and kaolinite reached a dispersion state after 12, 8, and 6 min, respectively.