Fabrication of highly b-oriented MFI zeolite film over broad temperature window

Abstract

Despite that oriented MFI zeolite films exhibit significant prospects for a wide range of applications due to microstructural superiority, their precise orientation control entails rigorous demands on reaction conditions (e.g., reaction temperature). In this work, we achieved facile synthesis of continuous b-oriented MFI zeolite films with few twins over a wide crystallization temperature range of 30–210 °C through adopting NH4F-mediated gel as nutrient during epitaxial growth. Both ammonium ions and fluorine ions were found crucial for enhancing the gel reactivity, endowing epitaxial growth with higher crystallization rates; moreover, the above morphology could be maintained even under fluctuating temperature conditions during film processing, thereby showing great potential for their bath production in a facile and reproducible manner.