Structural diversity of lamellar zeolite Nu-6(1)—postsynthesis of delaminated analogues

Abstract

Nu-6(1) zeolite, the lamellar precursor of NSI topology, was firstly synthesized with 4′4-bipyridine as the structure-directing agent (SDA) and then subjected to HCl–EtOH treatment for the purpose of structural modification. Interlayer deconstruction and reconstruction took place alternately in this acid treatment. An intermediate named ECNU-4 was separated at the initial stage of this continuous treatment process, which exhibited a special X-ray diffraction pattern without obvious reflection peaks at low angles. The zeolitic structure in the intralayer sheets was supposed to be well preserved in ECNU-4, whereas the interlayer structure became extremely disordered. The ECNU-4 intermediate showed structural diversity. It was converted into the reconstructed and interlayer expanded zeolite IEZ-NSI without an external silicon source by prolonging the HCl–EtOH treatment to 24 h. Moreover, with a partially delaminated structure, ECNU-4 was easily interlayer swollen at room temperature with cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide in the presence of tetrapropyl ammonium hydroxide. The swollen material was further sonicated to yield a more deeply delaminated zeolite, Del-Nu-6. ECNU-4 and Del-Nu-6 differed in delamination degree, structural disordering and textural properties, especially surface area.