Soil and water, the two precious natural resources are being polluted by heavy metals and nuclear waste species due to a range of human activities including mining, industrial activity, waste storage and disposal, nuclear activities, and some form of agricultural practices. Heavy metals once they reach a concentration above the critical limit will become toxic to living organisms. Hence there is a need to decontaminate soil and water of these heavy metals. Clay minerals, which are naturally present in soils control the availability of these heavy metal cations to a certain extent. However, the potential for remediation by naturally occurring clay minerals is limited by their selectivity for pollutant metal cations. Synthetic swelling mica, Na4Si4Al4Mg6O20F4.xH2O (Na-4-mica) since its discovery in 1970's has been shown to have a very high potential for metals remediation owing to its high cation exchange capacity (CEC of 468 meq/100gm) and selectivity. In this study synthetic micas with different interlayer charge, Na2Si6Al2Mg6O20F4.xH2O (Na-2-mica), Na3Si5Al3Mg6O20F4.xH2O (Na-3-mica) and Na4Si4Al4Mg6O20F4.xH2O (Na-4-mica) were synthesized in an eco-friendly way i e. keeping the fluorine content stoichiometric in the precursors. Pure phases have been obtained in most cases. Mica samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (MASNMR) spectroscopy. Distribution coefficient (Kd) values were obtained for the micas by conducting ion exchange with solutions containing Sr2+ and Ba2+ cations separately from a 0.5 M NaCl solution, which confirm the selectivity of the micas for these metal cations. These studies show that phase pure synthetic micas can be obtained by not using excessive fluorine in the synthesis procedure. The confirmation of selectivity for cations such as Sr2+ makes these micas potentially useful for remediation of nuclear waste contaminated sites.