A QUANTITATIVE SHAPE-ANALYSIS OF ORGANIC TEMPLATES EMPLOYED IN ZEOLITE SYNTHESIS

Structure analysis has been carried out on 160 organic templating agen ts known to synthesize zeolites from 27 framework types. Conformations were obtained by molecular mechanics energy minimization and ?he mole cular principal axes of inertia plotted to produce three-dimensional s hape-space diagrams. The results show a clear correlation between temp late shape and the zeolite product formed and give a unique insight in to the relationship between large and small templates that produce the same product. This work highlights the potential importance of shape analysis as a strategy in template design. (C) Elsevier Science Inc. 1 996