Abstract A beautiful dandelion-like microspheric SUZ-4 zeolite was created by the addition of ethyl acetate and using industrial by-product silica fume (SF) as silica source. The morphology of the SUZ-4 zeolite can be transformed from traditional rod to dandelion-like by adjusting the ethyl acetate dose and the pre-crystallization time of the synthesis gel. The effect of the ethyl acetate on the peculiar morphology formation and the construction mechanism were proposed as follow: Under the influence of ethyl acetate, the template in the system does not work, and the nuclei formed during the pre-crystallization are more liable to assemble in “tip-to-tip” orientation to form spheres, instead of growing on the facet with low density to form dispersed rods without ethyl acetate. On the other hand, the microscopic analyses indicated that, the dandelion-like microspheres are formed by the aggregation of little SUZ-4 crystals, which are not dense, allowing access to their interiors. Hence, the dandelion-like SUZ-4 zeolite displayed much better adsorption ability for methylene blue in water, compared with the rod-like one.