Rapid calcination of high quality mesostructured MCM-41, MSU-X, and SBA-15 silicate materials: A step towards continuous processing?

Rapid calcination of high quality silicate mesostructures is possible at rates at least up to 100 °C min−1. Some ’fine-tuning’ of the mesopore structure is possible by controlling the rate of heating during the calcination process and lower temperatures might be used to calcine the non-ionically templated SBA-15 and MSU-X materials. High calcination heating rates produce a distortion of the Si-MCM-41 hexagonal repeat unit and some form of phase transition in the 3-D disordered Si-MSU-X. At the calcination heating rates used here (2, 5, 10, 20, 100 °C min−1) the overall structural integrity of siliceous mesostructured materials is maintained while some structural collapse is observed in Al- and Ti-substituted MCM-41. SBA-15 materials appear to benefit from an elevated temperature aging period prior to high temperature calcination. The results suggest that for siliceous mesostructures it might be possible to use continuous processing methods at least in the calcination step.