Effect of ultrasound pretreatment on the hydrothermal synthesis of SSZ-13 zeolite

SSZ-13 zeolite has been identified as effective material for catalysts and membranes for years because of its structure, but the long crystallization time is the main obstacle for the industry application. The sonochemical-assisted method was identified as one of the potential pre-treatment methods which could reduce the formation duration of zeolites as well as other microporous and mesoporous materials. In this work, zeolite SSZ-13 was prepared by ultrasound pretreatment prior to hydrothermal crystallization. For comparison, samples by the conventional pretreatment and hydrothermal method were also prepared. The synthesized powders were characterized by XRD, SEM, BET, FTIR, NMR and TGA. The results showed that the complete crystallization of SSZ-13 synthesized by the ultrasound-assisted hydrothermal method was achieved within 72 h, and much faster than conventional hydrothermal synthesis (120 h). Furthermore, the ultrasound pretreatment showed very little effect on the structure properties of the final product compared with the conventional aging method.