Facile Synthesis of Al-pillared Mesoporous Montmorillonite Assisted with Concentrated Al13 Solution

Al-pillared mesoporous montmorillonite was facilely synthesized from concentrated Al₁₃ solution obtained by vacuum concentrating-ultrasonic pillaring strategy. Concentrated Al₁₃ solution could reduce the process of pillare and increase pillaring efficiency. The absolute value of layer distance could be increased by 0.96 nm via concentrated Al₁₃ solution pillare. ²⁷Al NMR indicates that Al Keggin ions of concentrated Al₁₃ are arranged in a more regular way by vacuum concentrating method. The Al-pillared mesoporous montmorillonite from concentrated Al₁₃ solution has bigger specific surface area and even pore size distribution which were characterized by X-ray diffraction(XRD) and nitrogen adsorption measurement. Furthermore the catalytic activity of Al-pillared montmorillonite loaded Ni and Mo catalysts was tested by the hydrodesulfurization of thiophene. The thiophene conversion reached 77.5%, which was higher than the corresponding value reported in the literature.