Mesoporous zeolite and zeotype single crystals synthesized in fluoride media

We report the synthesis and characterization of a series of new mesoporous zeolite and zeotype materials made available by combining new and improved procedures for directly introducing carbon into reaction mixtures with the fluoride route for conventional zeolite synthesis. The mesoporous materials were all prepared by hydrothermal crystallization of gels adsorbed on carbon matrices which were subsequently removed by combustion. The procedures presented here resulted in mesoporous zeolite and zeotypes materials with MFI, MEL, BEA, AFI and CHA framework structures. All samples were characterized by XRPD, SEM, TEM and N2 physisorption measurements. For the zeolite materials it was found that mesoporous MFI and MEL structured single crystals could indeed be crystallized from fluoride media using an improved carbon-templating approach. More importantly, it was found that mesoporous BEA-type single crystals could be crystallized from fluoride media by a newly developed procedure presented here. Thus, we here present the only known route to mesoporous BEA-type single crystals, since crystallization of this framework structure from basic media is known to give only nanosized crystals as opposed to mesoporous single crystals. For the zeotype materials it was found that highly crystalline mesoporous materials of AFI and CHA structure types could be synthesized using a newly developed procedure. 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.