An organo-mineral nanohybrid material in which the organic moiety is interleaved inside the inorganic lamella was prepared by using indole-2-carboxylate anions as a guest in the Zn-Al-layered double hydroxide lamella, as an inorganic host by a self-assembly technique. Powder X-ray diffractogram of the material shows that the basal spacing of the Zn-Al-layered double hydroxide with nitrate as the counter anion expanded from 8.8 to around 18.2 Angstrom in the resulting nanohybrid material. FTIR studies show that the absorption bands of the resulting materials correspond to the characteristic functional groups of the host and the guest. When the two data are taken together, the expansion can be attributed to the intercalation of the organic moiety, indole-2-carboxylate anion in the inorganic interlamella for the formation of the nanohybrid material. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.