Generation of mesoporosity in MOR zeolites synthesized under perturbation conditions

Abstract

The hydrothermal synthesis of various mesoporous materials with mordenite (MOR) structures is performed under perturbation conditions involving varying-temperature crystallizations and the use of ternary organic templates, and at least three types of mesoporous materials are obtained from the same starting gel containing the ternary organic templates. The greater structural diversities of these materials are found to correlate remarkably with the second-staged crystallization temperature and time. Among these materials, the two mesoporous materials crystallized incompletely over low temperature periods are differently structural composites consisting of MOR crystallites within disordered mesoporous phases, whereas the mesoporous mordenite crystallized completely over relatively high temperature period possesses the intrinsic microporosity and hierarchical mesoporosity. TEM morphological investigations on the mesoporous mordenite crystals demonstrate the formation of intracrystalline mesopores. Furthermore, an entirely new approach to synthesize mesoporous MOR zeolites is proposed based on the pore-inducing role of MOR structure defects and the adequate perturbation towards synthesis conditions.