Synthesis of highly stabilized mesoporous molecular sieves using natural clay as raw material

Mesoporous molecular sieves were hydrothermally synthesized from natural clay and sodium silicate by using cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as a template. The samples were characterized by means of XRD, TEM, TPR, FT-IR and N2 physical adsorption. The results show that well-ordered and highly stabilized mesoporous molecular sieves were obtained by adjusting the proportion of raw materials. The pore structure of the as prepared mesoporous molecular sieves was not damaged after calcination at 850 °C for 3 h or hydrothermal treatment at 100 °C for 10 days. The mesoporous ordering became better after hydrothermal treatment, but the pore shrank and the surface area decreased after thermal treatment. The stability of the as prepared mesoporous molecular sieves depends on the stability of the clay present in mesoporous pore walls. The presence of clay in the walls can be certified by the regular pore channel images as determined by TEM and XRD analyses.