In this article, the surfactants, (2-hydroxylethyl) octadecyl dimethylammonium nitrate (OH-C18), hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide(C16), and mixture of trimethylchlorosilane (TM) and OH-C18 were ion-exchanged with cations in the montmorillonite (MMT) to generate three organic MMTs (named as OH-C18-MMT, C16-MMT, and MMMT), leading to different environments of catalyst species in MMT interlayer gallery. Et[Ind]2ZrCl2 (abbreviated as EI) was supported on the above three types of OMMTs to prepare the PE/OMMT nanocomposites via in situ polymerization. By contrast, EI/MMMT showed higher activity than EI/OH-C18-MMT and EI/C16-MMT under the same polymerization conditions. The other two types of catalysts, such as [(tert-Bu)NSi(Me2)C5Me4]TiCl2 (CGCT) and Bis[N-(3-tert-butylsalicylidene)anilinato] titanium (IV) dichloride (FI) were also supported on the OH-C18-MMT for in situ ethylene polymerization. It was found that the activity of FI/OH-C18-MMT for ethylene polymerization was much lower than the other two corresponding catalysts under the similar reaction conditions. (c) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012