Facile synthesis and its high catalytic performance of hierarchical ZSM-5 zeolite from economical bulk silicon oxides

A facile one-pot method through controlled nucleation and release of reactive nutrient species by using bulk silicon dioxide as the Si source and seeds as liberated nuclei was reported for the fabrication of hierarchical ZSM-5 zeolites. This ZSM-5 aggregation (ZSM-5-B) was hierarchically constructed by many flaky ZSM-5 crystals. High methane conversion, high selectivity of aromatics and excellent anti-coking stability were achieved in the catalytic methane dehydroaromatization reaction (MDA) as a model reaction using the Mo-modified ZSM-5-B catalyst. Structure-properties relevance studies indicated the synergistic integration of the suitable acidity, higher external surface and hierarchical porosity contributed to the largely improved MDA catalytic performance. The work demonstrates a much simpler and more economical route for practical application of hierarchical zeolite. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc.