ETHYLENE GLYCOL MONOETHYL ETHER FOR DETERMINING SURFACE AREA OF SILICATE MINERALS

Abstract

Total surface area is a fundamental property of layer silicates, and it has been used as a criterion for identification. Early methods for determining surface area used nitrogen or ethane gas and were based on the principle that solid materials will adsorb a monomolecular layer of the gas at a particular pressure (4, 6). Dyal and Hendricks (6) introduced a method for determining surface area with ethylene glycol. Their method has been adapted to determining surface area of soils and soil minerals (2) and, although it is not an equilibrium method, much useful information has been provided by its use.