In order to improve the superficial performance of palygorskite and raise its application value, the authors treated the natural palygorskite (NP) with three processing methods, namely, acid dipping, acid dipping + calefaction, and acid dipping + calefaction + formaldehyde infusing. The performance of the modified palygorskite (MP) was also investigated by such means as SEM, FT-IR, XRF, BET-SSA and full hole distribution analysis. The results show that, compared with characteristics of NP, the gracile and aggregated compact crystal bundles in MP are subjected to fragmentation and decentralization, the roughness of microcrystalline surface increases, some impurities, especially the carbonates, are removed remarkably after treatment, and the specific surface area and the total pore volume (Vtotal) in MP are more than and close to two times of the area and the volume in NP, respectively. The mesopore volume (Vmeso) increases from 0.092 cm3/g to 0.15 cm3/g, while the mean pore size decreases by 2～3 nm. The phoney pore size distribution peak of MP is 17nm, which is 5nm smaller than the 22 nm of NP. In addition, the pores in all samples are mostly mesopores whose sizes vary in the range of 2～50 nm, and macropores and micropores are rarely seen. However, the three processing methods show no remarkable differences in the treatment results.