A multi-analytical study of physical behaviour in clay hydrogel media

Hydrogels have many properties which make them suitable for biomedical
applications. These properties can be improved by the integration of inorganic
ordered systems, in particular clays, into the gels. Amongst the class of
layered clay minerals, synthetic materials such as the laponites have been
found especially valuable as thixotropic gel additives and this project focuses
on this class of gel materials.
This project presents pa multi-analytical study of two grades of laponite (RD -
XLG) clay and cation-modified laponite (RD & XLG) hydrogels has been
performed to probe features of structural and visco-elastic behaviour. The
specific context to this work lies within the potential role of geologically�relevant hydrogels, and laponite hydrogels in particular, to abiogenesis, the
emergence of biological organisms on Earth. Wherever possible, the results
have been related to this context.