Effects of water content and temperature on the surface conductivity of bentonite clay

Abstract

This study explored the effects of water content and temperature on the mobility of exchangeable cations (termed the surface ionic mobility and hereafter ionic mobility) in the hydration layers of bentonite clay. The ionic mobility directly governs the surface conductivity of the clay. The investigation was done by measuring the bulk electrical conductivity (EC) of four sand–bentonite mixtures of different proportions for a wide range of water contents under constant temperature, and three bentonite samples at different water contents over 5–90°C. The ionic mobility was determined from the surface conductivity at the mean ionic strength of the hydration layers. The ionic mobility in the sand–bentonite samples increased with an increase in hydration layer thickness. For a given thickness of the hydration layer, the greater the bentonite content of a sample, the smaller was the ionic mobility. The ionic mobility in the bentonite samples at different water contents also increased, at reduced rates, with a rise in temperature. Consequently, the surface conductivity of the samples increased non-uniformly, at two different rates, with an increase in temperature. The increasing rate of this conductivity depended on temperature; over the low temperature range which depended on the water content, the rate was 0.013 dS/m.K, and over higher temperature range, the rate decreased to 0.008 dS/m.K. The commonly used temperature correction factor, 0.019 dS/m.K, for EC therefore did not hold true for the bentonite samples.