Author(s)

Jabrane Maissara¹, Halima Karym¹, Mohammed El Mahi Chbihi¹, Mohammed Moutaabbid¹, Mohamed Abatal², Said Benmokhtar^1*

¹Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Laboratory of Chemistry and Physics of Materials LCPM, Faculty of Sciences Ben M’Sik, University of Casablanca, Casablanca, Morocco.
²Laboratory of Investigation of Advanced Materials, Faculty of Engineering in Autonomous University, El Carmen, Mexico.

This work aims to characterize and determine the dehydroxylation enthalpy variations of two natural Moroccan clays from the Nador region (denoted K1) and the Settat region (denoted by K2). The variations of dissolution enthalpies were determined by dissolving clays in hydrofluoric acid. They have a minimum value for dehydroxylation of clays made between 600°C and 700°C. The analysis of the two clays shows that they consist of kaolinite in significant proportion. The optimum calcination parameters, for which dehydroxylation is total, are 700°C with a heating time of 6 H. The conversion of the kaolinite to metakaolinite was confirmed by IR analyses of the starting and thermally treated kaolin samples. The result confirms previous observations about obtaining metakaolinite with optimum reactivity when hydrated with calcium hydroxide as chemical activator.

Clay, Characterization, Dissolution, Calorimetry, IR

Maissara, J. , Karym, H. , El Mahi Chbihi, M. , Moutaabbid, M. , Abatal, M. and Benmokhtar, S. (2018) Enthalpy of Dissolution and Dehydration of Two Moroccan Clays. World Journal of Engineering and Technology, 6, 119-127. doi: 10.4236/wjet.2018.61007.