A facile in situ pillaring method—the synthesis of Al-pillared montmorillonite

Abstract A facile pillaring method for Al-pillared montmorillonite (Al-pillared-MMT) has been established by the in situ formation polyoxocation [Al 13 O 4 (OH) 24 (H 2 O) 12 7 + ] in the interlayer of montmorillonite (MMT). The result of X-ray diffraction (XRD) showed that the pillaring effect was consistent with that of the traditional method namely, the basal spacing was up to 18.8 A. PEG400 in the synthesis system played a part of a layer extending agent which could promote the forming of Al 13 7 + in the layer of MMT. The nitrogen adsorption–desorption measurement exhibited that the pore size and BET surface area of pillared montmorillonite(MMT) via an in situ way were 3.5–5 nm and 181 m 2 /g, respectively. The BET surface area was larger than the conventional pillared MMT and the pore size was nearly the same with traditional methods. The process of synthesis Al 13 7 + and pillaring MMT were completed in one step in this method, which was a facile and effective method for preparing pillared MMT.