## 3 Results and Discussion  
### Characterization of nMt Powder (nC4)  
A thorough methodology on the characterization of organomodified and inorganic nano-montmorillonite dispersions that are suitable as supplementary cementitious materials in cement nanohybrids was presented by the authors [19]. It was postulated that the anionic surfactant used in nC2 mostly kept the platelets apart, notwithstanding scarce areas of re-agglomeration. On the contrary, dispersion nC3 was fully exfoliated. The elemental composition of nC2 and nC3 was also given in the related graph, as well as the Si/Al ratio as a measure of comparison between dispersions nC2 and nC3 and the powder nC4. Lastly, the thermal properties of nC4 were investigated in comparison with nC2 and nC3. The XRD analysis of nC4 yielded a basal spacing (\(d\)-value) of 1.8 nm (Figure 2), which is more expected in unmodified nMt [43]. The reflection at 4.892\({}^{\circ}\) 20 corresponded to the 001 plane for this nMt and, as explained in literature [19], the intercalated platelets, being periodically stacked, were traceable by the XRD, whereas the exfoliated platelets, being fully disordered, remained XRD silent [44]. Although nC4 was expected to bear resemblance to nC2, both being organomodified, as shown in Figure 2, the powder OMMT, nC4, in fact, bears greater resemblance to the inorganic dispersion nC3. With respect to the XRD analysis of nC2, the reflection at 2.23\({}^{\circ}\) 20 corresponds to the 001 plane. The reflection at 4.36\({}^{\circ}\) 20 corresponds to the 002 plane, while the reflection at 6.4\({}^{\circ}\) 20 corresponds to the 003 plane. Higher order reflections such as 002 and 003, are typical of regular stacking of the modifier chains in the interlayer space [19]. However, the width at medium height of the peak corresponding to the 001 lane provides an estimate of the level of crystallinity of the nMT; therefore, the production process for nC4 produced less crystalline structures [45]. Lastly the typical montmorillonite reflection at 19.7\({}^{\circ}\) 20, which can act as a measure for the level of exfoliation, was non-existent for nC2, marginally traceable for nC3 (which is expected since nC3 is inorganic), and slightly more traceable for nC4 (which was not expected since it was organomodified). Therefore, nC2 seemed to have both intercalated (presence of higher order reflection, which are typical of regular stackings) and exfoliated (disappearance of peak at 19.7\({}^{\circ}\) 20) platelets, whereas nC3 seemed to be the better exfoliated of all three samples by XRD [19]. The condition of the nanostructure of the nMt's is expected to affect the mechanical, chemical, and thermal performance of the samples the nMt's will be added to significantly according to previous studies [19; 32; 46]  
TEM micrographs showed good intercalation and possible exfoliation of nC4. Soft edges can be observed in Figure 3A,B. Moreover, nC4 agglomerated less than nC2 or nC3 [19] in water dispersion and showed significant differences in terms of particle shape and size, with platelets reaching the size of 300 nm. Figure 2: Comparison of the X-Ray diffraction pattern of the organomodified montmorillonite (MMT) dispersion (nC2), inorganic MMT dispersion (nC3) [19], and organomodified MMT powder (nC4). The diffraction analysis was carried out according to Equation (2) for the various \(d\)-values. The \(d\)-values obtained for the diffraction pattern of nC4 (Figure 3B) were: \(d_{1}=2\times 1/0.96=2.08\) nm, \(d_{2}\) = \(2\times 1/1.83=1.09\) nm, \(d_{3}=2\times 1/2.63=0.76\) nm, and \(d_{4}=2\times 1/3.17=0.63\) nm. It is known that the study of diffraction patterns via TEM can clarify the extent of dispersion or exfoliation of the nMt [19]. These values clearly indicate that some platelets were intercalated and some exfoliated. The different \(d\)-spacing (1.8 nm) given by analysis XRD can be attributed to the fact that diffraction analysis is carried out on a single crystal, whereas XRD in the bulk of the powdered sample.