Surfactant-Templated Synthesis of Modified Porous Clay Heterostructure (PCH)

Abstract

Porous Clay Heterostructures (PCHs) have been prepared by the surfactant-directed assembly of mesostructured silica within the two-dimensional interlayer galleries of clays. The PCH is an interesting material to use as entrapping system such as ethylene scavenger, owing to its high surface area with uniform and specific pore size. In the present work, the PCH was synthesized within the galleries of Na-bentonite clay by the polymerization of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) in the presence of surfactant micelles. In addition, a mesoporous clay with organic-inorganic hybrid (HPCH) is modified via co-condensation reaction of TEOS with methyltriethoxysilane (MTS) to enhance hydrophobicity of PCH material for entrapping system. According to pore characterization, PCHs have surface areas of 421-551 m2/g, an average pore diameter in the supermicropore to small mesopore range of 4.79-5.02 nm, and a pore volume of 0.57-0.66 cc/g while HPCHs have surface areas of 533-966 m2/g, an average pore diameter of 4.28-6.38 nm, and a pore volume of 0.42-0.77cc/g.