Abstract： Aiming at the status of exploitative and productive capacity of vermiculite being low in spite of an abundant mineral resource of vermiculite, the modification of vermiculite, including acid modification, thermal expansion modification and organic modification were summarized. The applications and corresponding development of vermiculite in environmental protection, thermal insulation, nanocomposite materials and so on were introduced. It was pointed that the research achievements were enough to support improving the properties of vermiculite products, and the future research emphasis was pointed to be the structural change in procedure of modification and the corresponding influence on properties of vermiculite products.

Keywords: vermiculite; surface modification; intercalating modification; review