The thermal stability of montmorillonites, expanded with solutions of Co
3(H
2NCH
2CH
2O)
6](ClO
4)
3, can be drastically increased by introducing, together with the Co trimer,[Al
13O
4(OH)
24(H
2O)
12]
7+ ions that upon calcination in air at 500
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C form stable aluminaclusters. Several synthetic routes to the preparation of these bipillared
interlayered clays(bi-PILC) have been studied. Best results have been obtained by first ion-exchanging theclay charge compensating Na and Ca cations with [Al
13O
4(OH)
24(H
2O)
12]
7+ ions followed bya second ion exchange step to replace some of the Al
13 clusters in the intermediate Al-PILC with [Co
3(OC
2H
4NH
2)
6]
3+ ions. Elemental analysis together with powder XRD resultsindicate that PILC composition and pore height can be manipulated by washing theintermediate Al-PILC in order to hydrolyze the Al oligomers believed to occupy exchangesites on the clay silicate layers. Formation of Keggin ions seems to facilitate the back-exchange reaction with the Co trimer. Pillared materials with a Si/Co molar ratio between38.4 and 128.0 and
d spacing in the 1.40-1.75 nm range stable to 500
![](/images/entities/deg.gif)
C in air can beobtained in this way.