Thanks for answer Ken, I had the source clay samples but was hoping for more samples than just those two. I used to have a series of synthetic saponites but they were thrown out by my old university QUT when they forced me to retire, besides loosing most of my extensive mineral collection (several hundred specimens of beryls, topazes, Be-minerals, 300 different minerals from the Clara Mine in Germany, teaching collection, worth half a million dollars in total). I should have been a bit more precise in my description in the fact that I am looking for samples that are as phase pure as possible, not chemically pure. One of the problems that I got interested in with the synthetic saponites was the destribution of Al and Mg. Theory was that Al would substittute for Si in the tetrahedral sheet and Mg on the octahedral sheet. In reality no matter what you do you end up with a mixture of Al on both tetrahedral, octahedral and even interlayer sites, similarly Mg ends up not only on the octahedral sites but also in the interlayer. My interest is to resurrect this research with respect to using spectroscopic methods to distingishuis between the possible positions.

Dear Kloprogge,

I can sent saponite and hectorite from the borate deposits of Turkey. You can read my articles titled     "Presence and Distribution of Lithium in Borate Deposits and Some Recent Lake Waters of West-Central Turkey" , and "Saponite from the Emet colemanite mines, Kutahya, Turkey" on the web-researchgate.

Hi Mümtaz , that would be great, especially since you have already done work on them to characterize them. I will have a look at your papers tomorrow morning. Thanks, Theo.

Dear Dr. Kloprogge,

If you are interested in synthetic hectorite, maybe you can take a look on Laponite RD or Laponite XLG, from BYK/Rockwood Additives. The reference without surfactants, has become a commercial standard for research on plate-like nanoparticles. You will find a significant amount of scientific reports dealing with its characterization, and a diverse range of applications.

If you are still looking, the Japanese clay minerals society supply a synthetic saponite, it looks to be essentially phase pure.

http://www.cssj2.org/index_e.html

steve