Of every kilogram of nitrogen fertiliser applied to agricultural soil worldwide, a substantial fraction never reaches a plant. It leaches through the soil …
Read moreWater is the primary constraint on agricultural productivity in most of the world’s dryland farming regions. Of all the approaches to improving water use …
Read moreA good paint applies smoothly under a brush, doesn’t drip from a roller, and levels without sagging on a vertical wall before it dries. Meeting all three …
Read moreMost nanoclay that ends up in a commercial product has been chemically modified before it gets there. The modification is not cosmetic — it is functionally …
Read moreBiodegradable polymers have been commercially available for decades, but their adoption has been slower than environmental urgency would suggest. The reasons …
Read moreThe early papers on polymer-nanoclay composites were remarkable. A 1993 Toyota research publication on nylon 6/montmorillonite composites showed 40% improvement …
Read moreBiochar and nanoclay have each attracted substantial attention as individual soil amendments. Biochar for its carbon sequestration, long-term soil organic …
Read moreThe first article on this site covering nanoclays in drilling fluids gave an overview of why clay is used in mud systems. This article goes deeper — for …
Read moreRubber compounders have more than a century of experience with particulate reinforcement — carbon black, silica, and various mineral fillers are the backbone of …
Read moreThe same structural features that make nanoclays useful for thickening coatings and reinforcing polymers — large surface area, surface charge, interlayer space …
Read moreBuying nanoclay for the first time is more complicated than it should be. The terminology is inconsistent across suppliers, the catalog listings don’t …
Read moreClay has been applied to skin for thousands of years. What’s changed is that we now understand what it’s doing at the molecular level, and …
Read moreFlame retardancy is one of the most commercially important applications of nanoclay in polymer composites — and one of the most misunderstood. The …
Read moreWalk into any coatings laboratory and ask about rheology modifiers and someone will mention nanoclay within the first few minutes. It’s been part of the …
Read moreIf you’ve ever wondered why some food packaging keeps contents fresh for months while similar-looking packaging fails in weeks, part of the answer is …
Read moreIf you want to buy nanoclay, your options range from a 25-kilogram bag of research-grade Cloisite from a lab supply catalog to a 20-ton container of crude …
Read moreMost engineered drug delivery nanoparticles — liposomes, PLGA nanoparticles, mesoporous silica — require sophisticated synthesis, careful quality control, and …
Read moreBentonite’s largest single market by volume isn’t nanotechnology — it’s drilling. Every year, millions of tons of bentonite go downhole in …
Read moreEvery new nanoclay user eventually asks the same question: “Is this stuff safe?” The answer is nuanced but ultimately reassuring — nanoclays have …
Read moreAgriculture faces a paradox of abundance and waste. Farmers apply billions of tons of fertilizer annually, yet 40–70% of nitrogen fertilizer never reaches the …
Read moreThe Toyota Central R&D Labs changed the nanoclay industry in 1987. Their researchers added a small amount of organically modified montmorillonite to nylon-6 …
Read moreChoosing a nanoclay is not like choosing a grade of steel, where you’re picking from a spectrum of the same basic material. Montmorillonite, kaolinite, …
Read moreIf you’ve ever tried to source nanoclay and found yourself confused by suppliers using “bentonite,” “smectite,” and …
Read moreMost engineers and formulators first encounter nanoclays through a frustrating experience: reading academic papers filled with crystallographic notation, …
Read moreThe academic literature on nanoclay applications runs to tens of thousands of papers. Most of them describe laboratory-scale experiments that never reached …
Read moreNanoclay pricing is one of the least transparent areas in the specialty minerals market. Suppliers rarely publish list prices. Quotes vary by a factor of five …
Read more“Which nanoclay should I use?” is the most common question we hear from engineers evaluating these materials for the first time. The answer depends …
Read moreEvery nanoclay product starts as a rock in the ground. Between the open-pit mine and the sealed bag that arrives at your facility, there are four to six …
Read moreIf you search “what is nanoclay” you’ll get a dozen academic definitions involving phyllosilicate crystal chemistry and interlayer cation …
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