Urea intercalation of kaolinite (a stepwise process)

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Gergo Roth
Veszprém, H-8200, Hungary
Software engineer

Description of the scene:
"Urea molecules attack the kaolinite simultaneously both on the outer surface and by entering the interlayer space between two adjacent fused octahedral(O) and tetrahedral (T) sheets of OT-layers. Once the kaolinite structure has undergone a considerable structural reorganization, the urea molecules continue to increase the basal plane distance, thus swelling to a degree that matches values measured by crystallographic measurements."

Robert K. Szilagyi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Szent Gyorgyi Research Professor
Surfaces and Nanostructures Laboratory
University of Pannonia, Faculty of Engineering
Veszprém, H-8200, Hungary