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Urea-assisted morphological engineering of MFI nanosheets with tunable b-thickness

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Abstract

Engineering of crystal morphology affects the catalytic and adsorption properties of zeolitic materials. Considering the anisotropic diffusion of molecules derived from its topological features, MFI zeolite nanosheets with short b-axis thickness are highly desired materials to reduce diffusion resistance. However, the design and development of eco-friendly synthesis protocols with reasonable cost and high efficiency remain elusive. Herein, we reported a systematic study on the synthesis of MFI nanosheets using urea as an additive. Both silicalite-1 and ZSM-5 zeolites (MFI type framework structure) with controllable b-thicknesses ranging from 50–200 nm were achieved by optimizing the synthetic parameters including water content, urea and SDA concentrations. The concentration of hydroxide anions was found to dominate the crystallization kinetics compared with the counterpart tetrapropylammonium cations (TPA+). To facilitate the crystal growth of MFI zeolites in the presence of urea, the ratio OH−/SiO2 has to be higher than 0.2, independent of the TPA+ concentration. The role of urea in the assistance of plate-like crystal formation through the inhibition of (010) facet growth was revealed by electron microscopy and infrared (IR) spectroscopy analyses. The developed strategy for morphological engineering is not limited to the MFI-type zeolite and can be applied to other frameworks depending on the intrinsic properties of additive molecules and the interactions between them.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Luis J. Aguilera for the measurement of ATR-FTIR spectra, Valérie Ruaux for ICP-MS measurement, and Marie Lozier for Ar physisorption measurement. Z. X. Q. acknowledges the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. 22178389); S. M. acknowledges the support from NSFC (No. 21975285); and Z. X. Q. and S. M. acknowledge the support from PetroChina (Nos. PRIKY21084 and KYWX-21-021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Catalyse et Spectrochimie, ENSICAEN, UNICAEN, CNRS, Caen, 14050, France

    Qiudi Yue & Svetlana Mintova

  2. Petrochemical Research Institute, PetroChina Company Limited, Beijing, 100195, China

    Chaowei Liu, Hongjuan Zhao & Honghai Liu

  3. Centre de Recherche sur les Ions, les Matériaux et la Photonique, CIMAP-ENSICAEN, CNRS UMR 6252, Caen, 14050, France

    Pierre Ruterana

  4. State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, College of Chemical Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, 266580, China

    Jiaqi Zhao, Zhengxing Qin & Svetlana Mintova

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  1. Qiudi Yue
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Correspondence to Zhengxing Qin or Svetlana Mintova.

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Yue, Q., Liu, C., Zhao, H. et al. Urea-assisted morphological engineering of MFI nanosheets with tunable b-thickness. Nano Res. 16, 12196–12206 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5749-0

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