The influence of ultrasound on the thermal behaviour of clay minerals

The aim of this work is to compare the influence of sonication on the thermal behaviour of kaolinites (KGa-1, KGa-2), pyrophyllite, talc and muscovite. Sonication produces a significant increase of the specific surface area due to particle size reduction. As sonication time increases and the particle size decreases, the thermal behaviour of these clay minerals is strongly modified. Thus, there is a significant increase of the weight loss at low temperature which is related to the loss of some outer hydroxyl groups and protonated hydroxyls whose proportion in the minerals increase as the new surface generated increases. Additionally, the original endothermic dehydroxylation effects of all these minerals shift to lower temperatures. Disordered kaolinite shows the smallest shift (9 °C) while muscovite presents the largest (184 °C). A linear relation has been established between the temperature shift of the dehydroxylation and the percentage of increase in the specific surface area. The influence of sonication on the high temperature DTA effects of kaolinite, pyrophyllite, and muscovite is also studied.