Novel approach to fabricate organo-LDH hybrid by the intercalation of sodium hexadecyl sulfate into tricalcium aluminate

Abstract In this work, a simple but efficient approach to synthesize sodium hexadecyl sulfate (SHS) intercalated layered double hydroxide (CaAl-LDH-SHS) is proposed. By intercalating SHS ions into the hydrates of C3A, CaAl-LDH-SHS is successfully prepared within 2 h at 25 °C. In order to understand the intercalation behavior and structure of the products, various techniques such as powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric-differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy combined with near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy were adopted. The XRD analysis revealed that SHS was successfully intercalated into the hydrate of C3A, with an expanded basal spacing d(001) of 2.66 nm. The C H and S O stretching vibrations observed in the FT-IR spectra further evidenced the presence of SHS in the resulting products. The average platelet diameter of 1–2 μm and average thickness of 20–30 nm of CaAl-LDH-SHS were obtained from the SEM image and XRD analysis.