Study by XPS of different conditioning processes to improve the cation exchange in clinoptilolite

We report the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis of natural clinoptilolite from a mine in Sonora, México. From these measurements we determined the chemical state and binding energy of the elements in the zeolite framework and of those in the extra framework sites. The analysis was done on natural clinoptilolite and on cation-exchanged clinoptilolites with Na+ and NH4+ ions. Complementary analysis by several experimental techniques was performed to determine the structural, chemical composition and chemical state modifications experimented by clinoptilolite samples processed by the two types of cation exchange. The clinoptilolite samples were studied by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to determine their structural composition, Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) to measure the chemical composition and electronic paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy to determine the chemical state of iron inside the natural zeolites.