화학공학소재연구정보센터
Particulate Science and Technology, Vol.30, No.5, 474-481, 2012
New Insights to Characterize Mineralogical and Physicochemical Properties of Nanoporous and Nanostructured Bentonites (Montmorillonites)
Bentonite is rich in montmorillonite, which is a nanostructured and nanoporous member of smectite group. Mineralogical and physicochemical properties of bentonites play a key role in choosing appropriate bentonites for different applications. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) reveals the morphological form and size of mineral phase of the studied bentonite samples. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed that the studied bentonites predominantly consist of montmorillonites accompanying other impurities such as quartz, calcite, and plagio feldspar. The amount of organic components CHNO (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen) in the samples was so low that it had no significant effect on the result of XRF analyses. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis showed that there was a large amount of Al2O3 in sample ES3 and this large amount of Al2O3 indicates a greater amount of montmorillonite in this sample compared to that in sample GH1. Due to a larger amount of CaO, the type of GH1 montmorillonite is Ca-montmorillonite and due to a lower amount of CaO compared to that of Na2O the type of ES3 montmorillonite is Na-montmorillonite. This study aims at examining a novel insight to characterize bentonites to find out the mineralogical and physicochemical properties of studied samples.