TITLE:
Synthesis and Characterization of Porous Materials from Paleocene-Ypresian Clay Minerals Activated with Na2CO3 from Oued Abiod (Central Tunisia)
AUTHORS:
Mohamed Mosbahi, Ali Tlili, Fakher Jamoussi
KEYWORDS:
Paleocene-Ypresian Clays Minerals, Activation, Na2CO3, Microporous and Mesoporous Materials
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.14 No.5,
May
29,
2026
ABSTRACT: Paleocene-Ypresian clay minerals of Meknassy region in the central Tunisia are characterized with mineralogical variety: Smectite, illite, kaolinite, sepiolite and palygorskite. This mineralogical diversity encourages the valorization of these clays in several industrial fields. In this work, the basic activation of the studied clay with Na2CO3 (5%) and its leads to transformation into microporous and mesoporous materials are a potential approach to integrate advantages of Na-smectite and different material structures for desirable properties and applications. Indeed, the basic activation of these clays increases the specific surface, augmenting from 30.41 to 150 m2/g and causing the ionic exchanges Na-Ca, Na-K and Mg-Al between the Ca-smectitic, the kaolinite, the palygorskite, the sepiolite, the dolomites and the sodium carbonate, resulting in the formation of microporous and mesoporous materials. All the samples collected from the Oued Abiod section, before and after activation, were the object of a mineralogical characterization by XRD and SEM, a chemical characterization by X-ray fluorescence, a physical characterization (pH, IR) and Particle size distribution by a Mastersizer S laser particle size analyzer. The SEM observation strongly reveals the transformation of the activated natural clays of the HOA3 sample, in an alkaline environment where pH = 10, into tubular-shaped materials of important porosity and regular and irregular morphology.