Influence of ethanol addition on the modification of montmorillonite by hexadecyl trimethylammonium bromide

Although modification of montmorillonite (MMT) with cationic surfactants has been studied extensively, the influence of the reaction medium has not been investigated systematically. The present paper reports the influence of ethanol on the modification of MMT using hexadecyl trimethylammonium bromide (HDTMA-Br). Wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) were used to characterize the organically modified montmorillonite (OMMT). The addition of ethanol had little influence on the cation exchange, but affected greatly on the intercalation of the surfactant ion pairs into the interlayer space when HDTMA exceed the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of MMT. The increase of the ethanol/water ratio increased the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of HDTMA-Br solution. The intercalation of HDTMA ion pairs proceeded when the HDTMA concentration was above the CMC. It was confirmed that both of basal spacing and organic fraction followed sigmoid functions for OMMT prepared with excess HDTMA-Br amount and various surfactant concentrations under different CMC.