A composite of layered double hydroxides obtained through random costacking of layers from Mg–Al and Co–Al LDHs by delamination–restacking: Thermal decomposition and reconstruction behavior

A composite of dodecylsulfate intercalated Mg–Al and Co–Al LDHs in which the layers of the two LDHs are randomly costacked was prepared starting from the monolayer colloidal dispersions of the individual surfactant intercalated LDHs obtained through delamination in 1-butanol. The surfactant ion of the composite could be exchanged for acetate ions. The thermal decomposition and reconstruction behavior of the acetate-intercalated composite was found to be different from those of an LDH in which each layer contains Mg, Co and Al and a physical mixture of Mg–Al and Co–Al LDHs. While the composite shows partial reconstruction to LDH phase even after heating up to 1000 °C the other samples do not show reconstruction beyond 800 °C.