FT-IR Spectroscopy Applied for Surface Clays Characterization

The present paper should be considered as a review of the application of Fourier Transform Infra-Red for surface clay characterization. The application of surface clay materials for water treatment, oil adsorption, excipients or as active in drugs has largely increased these recent years. The surface clay material presents hydroxyl groups, which can link very easily water molecules. These hydroxyl groups can react with organic groups and by their vibration in the infra-red region, FT-IR can be easily used as a technical method for surface clay characterization. In this paper, we focus on the determination of Lewis and Brönsted acid sites on the clay surface, a critical review of the sample preparation, the surface characterization of bulk clay and the modified surface clay samples using FT-IR spectroscopy.