Can Natural Muscovite be Expanded?

• Natural muscovite was expanded by thermal treatment and ion exchange.
• The basal spacing of muscovite was increased around 7 times after treatments.
• Calcination led the interlamellar K+ exchangeable.

In this work the expansion of natural muscovite has been made through the treatments of calcination and ion exchange. The experimental results have demonstrated that the gallery of muscovite could be expanded from 0.32 nm to 2.25 nm with the treatments. The calcination was to weaken the bond or attraction of the layers to interlamellar K+ and to move slightly the O atoms in dehydroxylation. The Li+/K+ and OTA+/Li+ exchanges led to the expansion of muscovite, which might be due to the low layer charge of muscovite after Li+/K+ exchange and the long chain of OTA+, respectively.

The expansion of natural muscovite could be realized through calcination, K+/Li+ ion exchange and Li+/OTA+ exchange.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide