Reaction kinetics of organo-clay hybrid films: In-situ IRRAS, FIM and AFM studies

In this paper we report the reaction kinetics of nanodimensional clay saponite and hectorite with an amphiphilic cation octadecyl rhodamine B (RhB) in hybrid Langmuir monolayer at the air-aqueous clay dispersion interface. The surface pressure-molecular area (π-A) isotherms were strongly influenced by the presence of clay and the lift-off area of the cationic amphiphile shifted to progressively larger area. In-situ fluorescence imaging microscopic (FIM) studies showed the formation of micro-order domains in the organo-clay hybrid monolayer films at the air-clay dispersion interface. In-situ infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy (IRRAS) was used to demonstrate the reaction kinetics. The time taken to complete the reaction kinetics for RhB-hectorite hybrid films is larger than for RhB-saponite hybrid films. Atomic force microscopic images of hybrid Langmuir-Blodgett films gave compelling visual evidence of the incorporation of clay platelets into the hybrid films, whose density increased with the progress of reaction kinetics.