A novel method to prepare zeolites with hierarchical porosity

Abstract

A method to prepare zeolites with defined macroporosity that consists in the gelcasting of zeolite suspensions containing a surfactant, responsible for the generation of bubbles on shearing, and a polysaccharide that gels on cooling was proposed. The materials provide a narrow macropore size distribution in addition to the characteristic microporosity of the zeolite. The gelcast zeolite were characterized by SEM, which revealed a highly porous microstructures with cells of different size and communicating porosity. The results show that the longer times of mechanical mixing lead to bigger and deeper pores, since mixing promotes forming of the surfactant-containing slurry.This work has been supported by CICYT, Spain (MAT2003-00836).Peer Reviewe