Lamellar mesostructured aluminophosphates: Intercalation of n-alky lamines into layered aluminophosphate by ultrasonic method

A family of lamellar mesostructured aluminophosphates, denoted Mu-4-Ln (L stands for lamellar, n = 4, 8, 12, 16, the number of carbon atoms for n-alkyl chain) has been prepared through intercalating n-alkylamines into the layered aluminophosphate [(C₂H₅)₂NH₂] ₄[Al₈P₁₀O₄₀H₂] · [H₂O]_2.5 (Mu-4) using an ultrasonic method. The intercalation compounds are characterized by XRD, IR, TG, NMR, as well as compositional analyses. The results show that the intact sheet structure of Mu-4 retains while the n-alkylamines are intercalated into the layers. A linear relationship is observed between the interlayer distance and the number of carbon atoms in n-alkyl chains. A possible arrangement of the n-alkylamines in the interlayer space has been proposed using computer simulations.