High-surface-area zeolitic silica with mesoporosity

In this study, we report a new, simple approach to the preparation of high- surface-area zeolitic silica (HZS) with well-defined mesoporosity by combin ing hydrothermal synthesis and sol-gel processing. N-2 adsorption-desorptio n measurements show that HZS has a BET surface area of 678-723 m(2) g(-1) a nd well-defined bimodal pores at 5.5 and 26.0-34.5 Angstrom. XRD, TEM and F T-IR show that HZS has a typical zeolite MFI structure. HZS is thermally st able and has tunable pore size and pore volume, and thus is promising for a pplications in catalysis, separation, and micro electronics. The described approach also appears general and may be readily extended to zeolitic alumi no silicates by using suspensions of other zeolite nanoparticles.