Study of Nano-Kaolinite Properties in Clay Liner Application

This paper reports the outcome of the laboratory investigation conducted on new clay liners modified with kaolinite combined with various content of lime-treated, various content of bentonite and admixture of kaolinite adding with 3% nano-kaolinite for composition. The 3% nano-kaolinite was chosen based on earlier finding by S.V.Netethu (2013). The various content of lime-treated and bentonite adopted are 2.0%, 5.0%, 7.5% and 10.0% by total weight of the kaolinite. Compaction tests was performed on the resulted modified clay liner samples to evaluate the best percentage that gives optimum moisture content (OMC) and maximum dry density (MDD) . The best percentage of each bentonite and lime-treated are chosen and be added into kaolinite and the physical properties of samples are tested and compared to the other two samples which are kaolinite only and kaolinite added with 3 % of nano-kaolinite. Nano-kaolinite was produced using a mill machine and the sized of nano-kaolinite (1nm-100nm) were examined under Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) machine.The addition of 3% nano-kaolinite to the kaolinite gives the best compaction result compared to bentonite or lime-treated. The value of dry density is increased to give the reduction of air voids, thereby reducing the hydraulic conductivity by concept. Based on the compaction test value, it clearly observed that admixture of kaolinite adding with 3% nano-kaolinite gives the best results from the other samples due to required less water to achieve maximum dry density of 1.39 Mg/m3 and 27.34% of optimum moisture content resulted positive effect in soil properties.