Zeolite beta, especially heteroatomic zeolite beta, has been widely used in the industries of fine chemicals and petroleum refining because of its outstanding thermal stability, acid resistance, and unique 3-D open-frame structure. In this paper, aluminum-free Mn-β zeolite was hydrothermally synthesized in the SiO2-MnO2-(TEA)2O-NaF-H2O system. The effect of the chemical composition of the precursor mixture to the crystallization of the Al-free Mn-β zeolite was investigated. The synthesized Al-free Mn-β zeolite was characterized by inductively coupled plasma (ICP), XRD, thermogravimetric/differential thermal analysis (TG/DTA), N2 adsorption-desorption, FT-IR, UV-vis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results show that the synthesized zeolite has a structure of β zeolite with good crystallinity and Mn ions present in the framework of the zeolite. The synthesized Al-free Mn-β zeolite shows great catalytic activity toward the phenol hydroxylation reaction using H2O2 as the oxidant. Approximately 35% of phenol conversion and ∼98% of dihydroxybenzene selectivity can be obtained under the optimal conditions.
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