Exploration of a New Source of Sustainable Aluminosilicate Clay Minerals from Morocco: Mineralogical and Physico-Chemical Characterizations for Clear Upcoming Applications

Abstract

A new source of clay mineral was explored and an extraction and purification protocol was developed to isolate it from raw clay samples acquired in the Oued Ziz region of southeastern Morocco. Clay minerals are always identified in the raw clay or soil by a purification step, as the presence of carbonates, iron oxides or organic matter interferes with the identification process. Purification is also necessary to study the properties of clay minerals. The process involved the collection of raw clay from the source, as well as mineralogical, and physicochemical characterizations. Characterization of the prepared materials was done using X-ray diffraction spectrometry (XRD) which makes it possible to determine the structure and nature of clay. The basic chemical analysis of the materials was carried out by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and inductively coupled plasma—Atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). Moreover, Energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR Spectroscopy) were used to investigate the chemical composition or nature of minerals. The morphology of the clay samples is unveiled by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thus thermal analysis (TGA-DTA) records the sample mass loss caused by thermal transformations such as dehydration or calcination for clay minerals. 57Fe Mossbauer spectrometry was also used to investigate the presence of iron in clay samples.