Title: A facile method for the fabrication of hierarchical porous nanocrystalline zeolite silicalite-1

Authors: P. Aneesh, Rosilda Selvin, G. Unnikrishnan, Hsiu-Ling Hsu, M. Bououdina

Addresses: Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology, NIT Calicut, Kerala 673601, India. ' Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, No. 300, Sec. 1, Wanshou Rd., Gueishan Shiang, Taoyuan County 333, Taiwan. ' Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology, NIT Calicut, Kerala 673601, India. ' Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, 300, Wan-shou Rd., Sec. 1, Kueishan, Taoyuan, Taiwan. ' Department of Physics, College of Science, Nanotechnology Center, University of Bahrain, P.O. Box 32038, Kingdom of Bahrain

Abstract: Zeolites are used in several industrial applications as catalysts, ion-exchangers and molecular sieves. The superior performance is related to the presence of well-defined micropores in the zeolite structure. However, in many cases the presence of micropores causes some limitations on their applicability. Construction of zeolite materials with hierarchical porous structures can improve reaction efficiencies and minimise channel blocking. The introduction of mesopores or macropores into zeolites has recently been achieved using macrotemplates. In this paper, we report the fabrication of zeolite structures having three generations, micro-, meso- and macroporosities using silicalite-1 nanocrystals and styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) latex particles as a macropore template. The procedure is very simple, and requires short period.

Keywords: hierarchical; nanozeolite; nanoprecursors; macrotemplate; nanocrystalline zeolite silicalite; porous zeolite silicalite; nanotechnology; zeolites.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMATEI.2011.037878

International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation, 2011 Vol.2 No.1, pp.30 - 37

Published online: 26 Mar 2015 *

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