High-efficient synthesis of zeolite LTA via a wet-gel crystallization route

Abstract

Zeolite LTA has been largely used as good adsorbent and detergent builder with a huge amount of demand. Numerous efforts have been devoted to the exploration of new synthetic methods for preparing zeolites more conveniently and efficiently. Herein, we reported a wet-gel crystallization route to synthesize zeolite LTA from simple filtration of the initial reaction mixture followed by heating for crystallization. The products were characterized in detail by means of X-ray diffraction, Raman spectra, scanning electron microscopy and elemental analysis. The yields of the solid products were also investigated, which suggested that the wet-gel method afforded an obvious improvement of products yield compared with the conventional synthesis route. For application as detergent builder, the calcium ion exchange rates of the wet-gel synthesized zeolites were similar with that of conventional LTA zeolites. Therefore the wet-gel route would be potentially important in industry due to its advantages of easy-performing, high-yielding and energy-saving.