Abstract
Imogolite, a hydrous aluminium silicate nanotube, has a potential to retain a large amount of solution and to form a gel. In the present work, imogolite was synthesized from sodium orthosilicate and aluminium chloride and obtained in the state of dispersed solution. The novel gel consisting of imogolite and poly(ethylene glycol) was successfully prepared by replacing water in imogolite-dispersed solution liquid PEG The imogolite/PEG gel samples were prepared with various imogolite concentrations and the rheological analysis has been conducted on those samples. The gel strength, which is determined from the value of storage modulus, increased as increase of imogolite concentration in the gel. In the current experiment, the critical concentration for the gel formation was considered as the flexion point in the plots of storage modulus against imogolite concentration. The experimental value of the critical concentration was approximately 0.18 vol%, which showed a large difference from the theoretical value of 0.005 vol%. The difference might indicate that the gel network of the imogolite /PEG gel could be formed by the bundles of the imogolite nanotubes.
