Montmorillonite clay minerals thermal stability

The thermal stabilities of their corresponding pillar intmlayered montmorillonite clay minerals (PILCs) were characterized through the use of powder X-ray diffraction, differential thermal analyses and surface area measurements. These relative stabilities were also found to increase in the order Gaia-PILC < Alia-PILC < GaAl -PlLC. The relative Brdnsted and Lewis acidities of the montmorillonite itself, and of the clay mineral pillared with the different polyoxocations have been examined through infrared pyridine sorption studies. 

Contrary to what many people think, PLSNs are not a recent discovery. One of the earliest systematic studies of the interaction between a clay mineral and a macromolecule dates backs to 1949, when Bower described the absorption of DNA by montmorillonite. Even in the absence of X-ray diffraction (XRD) evidence, this finding implied insertion of the macromolecule in the lamellar structure of the silicate. In the case of synthetic polymers, Uskov found in 1960 that the softening point of polymethylmethacrylate derived by polymerisation of methylmethacrylate was raised by montmorillonite modified with octadecyl-ammonium, while in the following year Blumstein obtained a polymer inserted in the structure of a montmorillonite by polymerising a previously inserted vinyl monomer. In 1965 Blumstein first reported the improved thermal stability of a PMMA/clay nanocomposite. He showed that PMMA inserted between the lamellae of montmorillonite clay resisted thermal degradation under conditions that would otherwise completely degrade pure PMMA." ... 

Pelitic rocks investigated in the same areas where corrensites are formed during alpine metamorphism (Kiibler, 1970) revealed the absence of both montmorillonite and kaolinite but the illite or mica fraction was well crystallized as evidenced by measurement of the "sharpness" of the (001) mica reflection (Kiibler, 1968). This observation places the upper thermal stability of the expandable and mixed layered trioctahedral mineral assemblages at least 50°C. above their dioctahedral correlevants. This is valid for rocks of decidedly basic compositions where no dioctahedral clay minerals are present. 

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