A facile vapor-assisted conversion strategy has been
developed
to prepare mechanically robust spherical ferrierite zeolite, in which
millimeter-sized commercial silica spheres doped with Na and Al were
utilized as the precursor and cheap ethylenediamine (EDA) aqueous
solution as the liquid phase. Characterization results demonstrated
that the shape of the spheres can be well maintained after crystallization,
and their interior is solid with compact crystal intergrowth. The
ferrierite content in the resultant spheres can reach as high as 100%.
More interestingly, the as-synthesized ferrierite spheres are Na+-free, and proton-form product can be directly obtained after
simple calcination. The crystallization process of spherical ferrierite
and the influence factors on the synthesis were investigated. It was
revealed that control of the Na amount on the spherical precursor
was critical for the crystallization, and a Na/Si ratio in the range
of 0.10–0.13 facilitated the achievement of binder-free ferrierite
spheres.
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