Minimizing electric currents for ionothermal synthesis of molecular sieve films by control of interfacial microenvironment

Abstract

Minimizing electric currents in the electrosynthesis of molecular sieve films is critically challenging. Herein we demonstrate the electric currents can be significantly minimized to catalyze AEL molecular sieve films nucleation in ionic liquids by the control of interfacial microenvironment. In the local microenvironment, the nucleation promoter of water and structure directing agents of ionic liquids are believed to be linked via hydrogen bonding in the electrical double layer, thus lowering the currents to 10e-8 A. The corresponding catalytic efficiency reaches up to as high as 105. This study sheds lights on manipulating the local chemical domain in the interfacial structure using extremely low currents for the synthesis chemistry.