Synthesis of glutamate intercalated Mg-Al layered double hydroxides: influence of stirring and aging time

An Mg-Al layered double hydroxides (LDHs) intercalated by glutamate ions (Glu/LDH) was obtained using co-precipitation processing. The influence of stirring and aging time on LDH morphology was investigated. The morphology of LDH was characterized by means of XRD, FT-IR, FE-SEM and XPS. The thermal stability, pore volume and specific surface area were probed through thermal gravimetric (TG) analysis and automatic specific surface area analyzer, respectively. The results showed that the stirring and aging time had an insignificant influence on the interlayer distance of Glu/LDH; while it had a critical impact on the crystallinity degree of the Glu/LDH structure. TG analysis designated that the thermal stability of glutamate ion intercalated in LDH layers was higher than that of glutamate ion before intercalation. Glu/LDH exhibited the best adsorption performance at a stirring and aging time of 12 h. A schematic molecular structure model of Glu/LDH was proposed.