Crystallization of Clay-Adsorbed Water

The nature of crystalline water in frozen pastes made from representative clay minerals and water was studied by x-ray diffraction. Only the diffraction peaks corresponding to the normal hexagonal ice structure were detected. The relative intensities of the diffraction peaks revealed evidence of epitaxy in that the ice crystals appeared to be preferentially oriented with their c-axes perpendicular to the c-axes of the individuial clay crystallites.