Current Industrial Applications of Clays

Abstract

In the last decade, many new industrial applications of clays have been developed. The main reasonsfor these new and modified applications are because clay suppliers have a better understanding of thephysical and chemical properties of the clay minerals. The clay industries have instituted better mining practices and improved processing. The clay deposits and products covered in this paper are commonclays that consist of shales, underclays, glacial lacustrine clays and clay rich soils; bentonites, kaolinsincluding ball clays, and palygorskites-sepiolites.
The applications of these clays are largely dependent on their structure, physical and chemical properties, including color and brightness, particle shape, size, and distribution, surface charge and area, viscosity, and other properties that are specific for certain applications. The differences in the clayminerals are discussed which demonstrates why kaolins are a good paper coating mineral, ball claysare excellent ceramic raw materials, sodium bentonites are superior drilling muds, calcium bentonitesare good absorbents and bleaching earths, and palygorskite and sepiolite are very useful as suspending agents in certain liquids with a high salt content.