Solvent-Free Synthesis of Zeolites from Solid Raw Materials

As important industrial materials, microporous zeolites are necessarily synthesized in the presence of solvents such as in hydrothermal, solvothermal, and ionothermal routes. We demonstrate here a simple and generalized solvent-free route for synthesizing various types of zeolites by mixing, grinding, and heating solid raw materials. Compared with conventional hydrothermal route, the avoidance of solvents in the synthesis not only significantly reduces the waste production, but also greatly increases the yield of zeolite products. In addition, the use of starting solid raw materials remarkably enhances the synthesis efficiency and reduces the use of raw materials, energy, and costs

Highly Mesoporous Single-Crystalline Zeolite Beta Synthesized Using a Nonsurfactant Cationic Polymer as a Dual-Function Template

Mesoporous zeolites are useful solid catalysts for conversion of bulky molecules because they offer fast mass transfer along with size and shape selectivity. We report here the successful synthesis of mesoporous aluminosilicate zeolite Beta from a commercial cationic polymer that acts as a dual-function template to generate zeolitic micropores and mesopores simultaneously. This is the first demonstration of a single nonsurfactant polymer acting as such a template. Using high-resolution electron microscopy and tomography, we discovered that the resulting material (Beta-MS) has abundant and highly interconnected mesopores. More importantly, we demonstrated using a three-dimensional electron diffraction technique that each Beta-MS particle is a single crystal, whereas most previously reported mesoporous zeolites are comprised of nanosized zeolitic grains with random orientations. The use of nonsurfactant templates is essential to gaining single-crystalline mesoporous zeolites. The single-crystalline nature endows Beta-MS with better hydrothermal stability compared with surfactant-derived mesoporous zeolite Beta. Beta-MS also exhibited remarkably higher catalytic activity than did conventional zeolite Beta in acid-catalyzed reactions involving large molecules