Plant essential oil/palygorskite composites were fabricated by high pressure homogenization and also modified using hexadecyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), the structure and morphology of CTAB modified plant essential oil/palygorskite antibacterial composites were characterized by FTIR, XRD, SEM, Zeta potential and TG. FTIR results displayed that plant essential oil was loaded on palygorskite, and also successfully modified by CTAB. Zeta potential of the composites ranged from negative to positive with the increasing of CTAB dosage. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) results indicated that antibacterial activities of the composites were enhanced with the increasing of CTAB content, and CTAB is beneficial to enhance the antibacterial activities of the composites. When the content of CTAB was 2.5%, the MIC values of CTAB modified carvacrol/palygorskite composites and cinnamaldehyde/palygorskite composites against S. aureus decreased from 1 g/L to 0.125 g/L and 0.5 g/L, respectively.