“…Due to the smooth, well-defined surface of muscovite sheets, they are widely used as substrates for surface force measurements (6 -9). Nonetheless, only few studies on surface reactions have been performed with muscovite compared to other clay minerals (10,11). This is probably due to the low surface cation exchange capacity (CEC) of muscovite, which is typically 0.01-0.05 mmol/g, i.e., more than 1 order of magnitude smaller than that of montmorillonite or vermiculite (0.5-2 mmol/g) (1,10).…”