After reading the patents on the manufacture of organo clay I made my own. 500 Gr finley ground bentonite clay 75 Gr Ammonium chloride both ingredients are added to the mixer and over the next 4 hours kept at between 120-140 F and blended for 2-3 minutes every 15 minutes. I used a simple double boiler arrangement with a hotplate , a heating pad wrapped around would work fine. Not sure why but do not exceed 160 F. As you can see in the sample jars the one on the left is unmodified the on on the right is modified , the idea is the ammonium chloride displaces some of the sodium, potassium and calcium ions which kick out water and will allow for the better absorption of oil. According to the patents it is best to use a catalyst methanol, acetone, ethanol and propylene carbonate as well as others were mentioned
That's a handy step forward in making bentone type clay. Ammonium chloride isn't that hard to get hold of and might be useful to degas molten aluminium too.
There are dry methods as I described above, there are also wet methods that involve the same mixture added to deionized water at the same temperature for the same amount of time...then you need to dry and powder the clay...lots more work. On the right next to the jar of modified clay you can see another jar , that one I used the wet method, the results seems about the same. Some of the earlier patents for the dry method include ball mills, roller mills shear rollers and hammers , I was planning on building a flask for my shop press, turns out a blender is fine for the quantities I need. The patents were almost comical in how convoluted they could make the mixing the mixing of two compounds under moderate heat sound. The ratios of ammonium chloride to clay varied from 15% to 35%, some recipes called for rinsing and drying the mixture. The recipes that listed a temperature were between 100F and 150F with 120F being the most common, one stated not to exceed 160F.
A majority of the recipes (80%) ? included ammonium chloride as the reagent, A small amount listed ammonium bromide as the reagent and I recall one using a Phosphate compound to add the +ions. Keeping in mind the wide diversity of the industries that might use this product I get the need for the different formulations however for our purposes the NH3Cl is the correct path.