Oxidation of anilinium ions intercalated in montmorillonite clay by electrochemical route

Resonance Raman, FTIR, X-ray diffraction, UV–vis–NIR, electron paramagnetic resonance, X-ray absorption at Si K-edge and electron microscopy were employed for characterizing the products formed through electrochemical oxidation of intercalated anilinium ions inside the cationic montmorillonite (MMT) clay. The layer silicate structure was not affected by the anilinium oxidation between the layers. The intercalated products present only an electronic absorption band at 400 nm, very low conductivity (ca. 10−7 S cm−1) and their Raman spectrum displays bands, with high relative intensities, assigned to the benzidine dication, indicating that this product was formed in high amount. Nevertheless, bands that can be correlated to phenazine-like segments and 1,4-phenylenediamine repeat units (PANI like segments) are also observed. The very low EPR signal indicates that diamagnetic species are predominant. All results are compared to those obtained by anilinium–MMT chemically oxidized by persulfate and the differences are pointed out.