Surface Properties of Magnesium-Aluminium Hydrotalcite-Like Compound Characterized by Inverse Gas Chromatography

In this paper, the Mg-Al hydrotalcite-like compound (Mg-Al-HTLC) was synthesized by hydrothermal method at 373K. Structure and morphology of Mg-Al-HTLC was obtained with X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy(FTIR). A series of polar and non-polar molecules were used for probes, surface properties of Mg-Al-HTLC was studied by inverse gas chromatography (IGC) at 353K, 363K, 373K, 383K respectively. The retention volume was utilized for evaluating the free energy of adsorption (-ΔGSP), the dispersive component of the surface energy(γsD), as well as the enthalpy and entropic component(ΔHSP, -ΔSSP). XRD results reveal that the Mg-Al-HTLC has high crystallinity and perfect layered structure. The results of IGC show that Mg-Al-HTLC would adsorb straight-chain alkanes spontaneously, and the values of γsDwere similar at all temperature. It reveals Mg-Al-HTLC is a material with particular characteristics of both acid and base. This study illustrates that, as a method to evaluate the surface properties of material , IGC method is dependable and significant.