A potentially useful catalyst with a porous structure akin to that of nanoscale Swiss cheese has had its structure revealed by electron crystallography.

Zeolites are microporous aluminosilicates with many applications, but their small size and the intergrowth of their crystals can make it difficult to determine the details of their structures.

Xiaodong Zou of Stockholm University, Avelino Corma at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain and their team collected high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images and data on electron diffraction for a kind of zeolite called ITQ-39. From this, they determined the three-dimensional structure of the material — the most complex zeolite structure ever elucidated — and found that it is made up of three different arrangements of the same basic layer. They say that its unusual intersecting channel system makes it a promising catalyst for converting naphtha to diesel.

Nature Chem. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1253 (2012)