Heat Treatment Effects on the Variation of the Specific Surface in Clay Minerals

Abstract

The clay minerals that compose the materials commonly known as clays, provide numerous characteristics that affect their mechanical behavior. One of the aspects that most affects the peculiar response of this type of materials is the specific surface area (SSA). This research aims to observe the behavior of SSA, when clay minerals with considerable ionic exchange are submitted to a heat treatment. The samples received different temperature stages and exposure times. The clay materials were characterized, in order to know their basic properties. Subsequently, two different methodologies were used to obtain the SSA, before and after the imposition of the temperature. In short, it was observed that the analyzed materials undergo extreme phase transformations, as the temperature was increased. The exposure time seems not to be an incident in the result obtained, at least for this research.