Amorphous nanoparticles in clays, soils and marine sediments analyzed with a small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) method.

This paper describes the amounts and size distributions of amorphous nanoparticles in clays, soils and marine sediments, and the effect of amorphous nanoparticles on the properties of clays, soils and marine sediments. So far aluminum-silicate amorphous nanoparticles such as allophane were observed only in soils of volcanic origin with a transmission electron microscope, and thus most people believed that aluminum-silicate amorphous nanoparticles were present only in soils of special origin. Recently, a method has been devised to quantify amorphous nanoparticles by using small angle X-ray scattering intensity.