Investigation on the Synergistic Effect of Surfactants for Silylation of Montmorillonite

Silylation, also known as silane grafting, is frequently used to organically modify montmorillonite (organo-Mt), which of properties were depended on the type of siloxane and intercalated interlayer structure of Mt, for construction of functional materials utilizing in a variety application of industry. We have synthesized organo-Mt using different siloxanes after Mt was firstly modified at three different surfactants of cationic cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), anionic sodium oleate (So) and nonionic sorbitan monostearate (Span60) to identifying the effect of surfactants for silylation of Mt. The spectral and structural characters of the obtained products were characterized by a combination of X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermogravimetry (TG), and contact angle analysis. The basal spacing of the organo-Mt increased with surfactants loading. We found that CTAB can significantly increase the spacing between layers of Mt from 1.55nm to 1.90nm, load more siloxane on Mt. The average contact angles of CTAB-Mt-APTES and CTAB-Mt-PTES were 69.9±0.3° and 80.7±0.3°, which could be more prone to the interlayer locking effect. Our study showed that the charge of surfactants has significant influence for silylation of Mt, resulting in the loading amount of silane, interlayer structure, and the surface wetting properties.