Method designs zeolite templates from scratch

Abstract

British researchers have moved a step closer to the goal of building molecular sieves to order. Their new computer strategy generates organic molecules that can serve as templates for making microporous solids with pores of a specific size and shape. The method is intended primarily for zeolites and other porous solids, but could be applied to areas such as drug development, say the researchers. The team includes Dewi W. Lewis, C. Richard A. Catlow, and Sir John Meurig Thomas of the Royal Institution of Great Britain's Davy Faraday Research Laboratory in London, and David J. Willock and Graham J. Hutchings of the Leverhulme Center for Innovative Catalysis at the University of Liverpool [ Nature , 382, 604 (1996)]. Currently, research aimed at developing micro- and mesoporous solids for molecular sieves and catalysts requires much trial and error feedback. Templates, usually organic bases, are sacrificial molecules around which the zeolitic structures grow. When growth is complete, the templates ...