Stability and characterization of mesoporous molecular sieve using natural clay as a raw material obtained by microwave irradiation

Mesoporous molecular sieve was synthesized via microwave irradiation method, and using natural clay, sodium silicate and aluminum chloride as raw materials and cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as a template agent under alkaline condition. The samples were characterized by various analytic and spectroscopic tools such as XRD, FT-IR, TEM, TG-DSC and N₂ physical adsorption, respectively. The results show that the synthesized sample has typical mesoporous structure and exhibits good mesoporous ordering. On the other hand, the as synthesized sample after calcination at 550 °C for 10 h has a surface area of 576.0 m²/g and an average pore size of 4.83 nm. Furthermore, the synthesized mesoporous molecular sieve still exhibits good mesoporous ordering after calcination at 750 °C for 3 h or hydrothermal treatment at 100 °C for 10 days.