Abstract--The crystalline and osmotic swelling of N~, Cs-, Mg-and Ca-montmorillonite has been measured in dimethyl sulphoxide and in formamide, N-methyl formamide, dimethyl formamide, N-methyl acetamide and dimethyl acetamide. These liquids have similar dipole moments but their relative permittivities vary appreciably from values less than water to values greater than water.Na montmorillonite exhibits osmotic swelling (diffuse double layer development -d(001) ~ 19 A) in formamide and N-methyl formamide and Cs gives osmotic swelling behavior in formamide. Cs-montmorillonite in the crystalline swelling region give spacings greater than those found for water with all liquids. Mg-and Ca-montmorillonite did not give spacings greater than 19 A in any of the liquids studied.The swelling behavior of montmorillonite is affected by relative permittivity but for liquids with a similar relative permittivity methyl substitution in the molecule may prevent the development of diffuse double layers on the particle surfaces.
INTRODUCTIONThe swelling of montmorillonites in water has received considerable attention (e.g. Norrish and Quirk, 1954;Norrish, 1954;Warkentin and Schofield, 1962; Norfish and Raussel-Colom, 1963; Posner and Quirk, 1964a,b;Quirk, 1968)with the result that the swelling behavior of montmorillonites in relation to factors such as exchangeable cation, hydrostatic pressure and electrolyte concentration, is relatively well described. There still exists, however, some uncertainty in the detailed interpretation of the swelling behavior (Quirk, 1968) particularly in relation to the exchangeable cation and its polarizing power in affecting the properties of water in the neighborhood of the cation and the surface.The literature reveals that montmorillonites show limited expansion [d(001) < 19 A,] with a wide variety of polar organic compounds; swelling in relation to the properties of organic compounds has previously been examined by Barshad (1952) and Greene-Kelly (1955a,b) and, although some very polar organic liquids have been used, for instance nitrobenzene (Yariv, Russell and Farmer, 1966), basal spacings greater than 15.2/k have not been reported except for glycerol and ethylene glycol. Most of the earlier work deals with the bonding and mechanism of adsorption of organic compounds in montmorillonite or simply the spacing of the interlayer complexes.