Patent ID: 7449164
Filing Date: 2008-11-11
Classification: B01J,B82Y,C02F,Y10T

Abstract:
1. A synthetically derived silicate composition consisting of elementary nanolayers formed from a central sheet of octahedrally arranged oxygen units with divalent metal cations occupying positions at the centers of the octahedral units to provide an octahedral sheet, said octahedral sheets being covalently linked above and below by sheets of tetrahedrally arranged oxygen and hydroxyl units with silicon atoms occupying positions in the center of each tetrahedrally arranged oxygens (the tetrahedral sheets), wherein dimensions of the elementary nanolayers vary from about 1 to 200 nanometers, the elementary nanolayers being aggregated into particles less than about 2 micrometers in dimension, the number of stacked elementary three-sheet nanolayers varying from predominately one nanolayer as unstacked nanolayers to no more than five nanolayers, while in the octahedral sheet up to 16 percent of the octahedrally arranged oxygen units are vacant and while in the tetrahedral silicate sheets at least 5 percent and up to 35 percent of the silicon atoms are linked to hydroxyl groups.