Solid–solid transformation route to nanocrystalline sodalite from Al-PILC at room temperature Original Research Article

The present study describes a solid–solid transformation of nanocrystalline sodalite from the solid gel mixture of Al2O3-pillared montmorillonite (Al-PILC) with sodium hydroxide at room temperature (25 °C) under an ambient atmosphere. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis confirms that the X-ray crystalline sodalite products are crystallized after 12 days, whereas infrared absorption (IR) spectra reveal that diagnostic IR absorption peaks due to single four-membered ring of sodalite framework is observed even after 1 day. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) shows that Al-PILC is transformed into discrete nano-sized sodalite particles (∼50 nm). Although the induction period, the time elapsing before nucleation, for the solid–solid transformation takes much longer (12 days), the nanocrystalline sodalite is successfully obtained at this extremely mild synthetic condition through solid–solid transformation.