Abstract:
Natural clays can be used as adsorbents, ion exchange resins, and catalysts or catalyst
supports. Natural clay has some laxity such as low thermal resistance, relatively low
cation exchange capacity and acidity. Furthermore, lot of impurities in the lattice clay surface can cause destruction to the structure of the clay. Therefore, the characteristic of natural clays needs to be improved, one of which is through chemically and physically activated. In this research, natural clay was activated with NaOH
(NaOH/Clay 5% w/w) through impegnation method and calcination at temperature
300oC. Activated clay was identified including the composition by XRD, the ratio
Si/Al by gravimetric method, cation exchange capacity by the Nessler reagent, surface area by methylene blue method and the acidity and alkalinity of clay by titration Alkalimetry and acidimetry. Based on XRD result, showing that the activation of natural clay with NaOH causes kaolin transformed into muscovite and producing sodium alumina silicate compounds. Furthermore, activated clay has value
of rasio Si/Al, cation exchange capacity, surface area, acidity and alkalinity that are
3.87, 43.117 meq/100 g, 24.07 m2/g, 0.5635 mmol/g and 0.3375 mmol/g respectively.
