Conspectus
Zeolites and related crystalline microporous
materials with cavities
and channels of molecular dimensions are of major importance for applications
ranging from ion-exchange to adsorption and to catalysis. Because
their unique shape-selective properties are closely related to the
size, shape, and dimensionality of the intracrystalline channels and
cavities, much interest has been devoted to the discovery of novel
zeolitic materials over the last several decades. As a result, a dramatic
expansion in the structural domain of crystalline microporous materials,
as well as in their compositional range, has been achieved. This is
largely due to the development of innovative synthetic strategies,
for example, organic structure-directing agent (OSDA) design, introduction
of heteroatoms like Ge in OSDA-mediated zeolite synthesis, topotactic
transformation of two-dimensional layered zeolite precursors, assembly−disassembly−organization−reassembly
method, etc. However, although many of these methodologies are quite
successful in finding unprecedented zeolite structures, the resulting
materials tend to be (hydro)thermally unstable and are often commercially
impractical from a manufacturing perspective because of the high cost
of the OSDA and/or heteroatom employed. Therefore, we focused on inorganic
synthesis parameters as the key phase selectivity factor that has
received relatively little attention in the search for new industrially
relevant zeolites.
This Account describes our recent efforts
to find previously undiscovered
aluminosilicate zeolites by boosting the roles of inorganic structure-directing
agents (ISDAs) in the presence of OSDAs. They include the multiple
inorganic cation and excess fluoride approaches, which aim to promote
a synergistic cooperation between ISDAs and/or OSDAs and thus to hold
a rational design concept, although the latter is not friendly to
the practical zeolite manufacturing process due to the toxicity of
fluoride. Using these two approaches, we were able to synthesize not
only the second generation (PST-29) and four higher generations (PST-20
(RHO-G5), PST-25 (RHO-G6), PST-26 (RHO-G7), and PST-28 (RHO-G8)) of
the RHO family of embedded isoreticular zeolites but also three other
novel zeolite structures (EU-12, PST-21, and PST-22). We also explored
the synthesis of a number of heteroatom-containing aluminophosphate
(AlPO4) molecular sieves with different framework structures
and unusually high framework charge density through the cooperative
structure direction of alkali metal and small OSDA cations or under
wholly inorganic conditions. Although we need to clarify the nature
and extent of interactions between the inorganic cations and framework
components in synthesis mixtures, we believe that our synthetic concepts,
shedding new light on the importance of inorganic synthesis parameters,
will open a door for achieving many other novel zeolite structures
and compositions.