Clays are a constituent of the earth. As a result, the discovery and traditional use of clays in construction and pottery worldwide dates back to antiquity. Guinea has several deposits of clay minerals whose chemical and mineralogical compositions have been little studied. Despite lacking of scientific data on these clay minerals, they are used today in pottery and habitat construction. As a step towards promoting the use of clay materials in Guinea, we conducted a study of the physicochemical and mineralogical properties of three natural clays from Kakan in the Republic of Guinea (AKKB, AKKE, AKKO) used in habitat construction. The aims of this work were to better understand their properties, but above all to be able to act on them to improve and broaden their applications, which until now have been limited to construction. These clays were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF), moisture content (%W), laser granulometry, Atterberg limits, specific surface area, infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis and differential thermal analysis (TGA/DTA). These analyses revealed that the main clay minerals present in our samples are kaolinite, illite and, montmorillonite, with the addition of impurities, the most abundant of which is quartz.
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