Abstract
The shape of clay agglomerates reflects the properties of interactions of clay particles and is also expected to predict microstructures inside clay deposits. We carried out the shape analysis of agglomerates of spherical latex beads, Kaolinite clay and Bentonite clay under various ion concentrations of the solutions. A series of Discrete Element simulations with both the DLVO interaction and the linear spring-dashpot contact model was also performed to investigate the detailed agglomeration process. It was found that (1) they all have fractal nature and the obtained fractal dimension is a good measure to quantify their shape; (2) a high ion concentration leads to high fractal dimension which means a compact structure with small voids because large void structure cannot stand against larger attractive intergranular force; (3) the ion concentration lower enough near the agglomeration limit also results in the compact structure because of the lack of intergranular friction between the fine particles.
