Monte Carlo Simulations of Parallel Charged Platelets as an Approach to Tactoid Formation in Clay

The free energy of interaction between parallel charged platelets with divalent counterions has been calculated using Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the electrostatic effects on aggregation. The platelets are primarily intended to represent clay particles. With divalent counterions, the free energy for two platelets or two tactoids (clusters of parallel platelets) shows a minimum at a short separation due to the attraction caused by ion-ion correlations. In a salt-free system, the free energy of interaction has a long-range repulsive tail beyond the minimum. The repulsion increases for tactoids with larger aggregation numbers, whereas the depth of the free-energy minimum is graduall…