Clay nanolayer encapsulation, evolving from origins of life to future technologies

Clays are the siblings of graphite and graphene/graphene-oxide. There are two basic ways of using clays for encapsulation of sub-micron entities such as molecules, droplets, or nanoparticles, which is either by encapsulation in the interlayer space of clay nanolayered stacked particles (“the graphite way”), or by using exfoliated clay nanolayers to wrap entities in packages (“the graphene way”). Clays maybe the prerequisites for life on earth and can also be linked to the natural formation of other two-dimensional materials such as naturally occurring graphite and its allotropes. Here we discuss state-of-the-art in the area of clay-based encapsulation and point to some future scientific directions and technological possibilities that could emerge from research in this area.