Letter abstract
Nature Materials 7, 551 - 555 (2008)
Published online: 22 June 2008 | doi:10.1038/nmat2220
Subject Categories: Catalytic materials | Porous materials | Characterisation and analytical techniques
Determining the aluminium occupancy on the active T-sites in zeolites using X-ray standing waves
Jeroen A. van Bokhoven1,
Tien-Lin Lee2,
Michael Drakopoulos3,
Carlo Lamberti4,
Sebastian Thie
2,5
&
Jörg Zegenhagen2
Zeolites are microporous crystalline materials that find wide application in industry, for example, as catalysts and gas separators, and in our daily life, for example, as adsorbents or as ion exchangers in laundry detergents1. The tetrahedrally coordinated silicon and aluminium atoms in the zeolite unit cell occupy the so-called crystallographic T-sites. Besides their pore size, the occupation of specific T-sites by the aluminium atoms determines the performance of the zeolites2. Despite its importance, the distribution of aluminium over the crystallographic T-sites remains one of the most challenging, unresolved issues in zeolite science. Here, we report how to determine unambiguously and directly the distribution of aluminium in zeolites by means of the X-ray standing wave technique3 using brilliant, focused X-rays from a third-generation synchrotron source. We report in detail the analysis of the aluminium distribution in scolecite, which demonstrates how the aluminium occupancy in zeolites can systematically be determined.
- ETH Zurich, Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, HCI E127, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
- European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, BP 220, F-38043 Grenoble Cedex 9, France
- Diamond Light Source Ltd, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot OX11 0DE, UK
- Centre of Excellence NIS- Dipartimento di Chimica I.F.M., Università di Torino, Via P. Giuria 7, I-10125 Torino, Italy
- University Hamburg, Institut für Experimentalphysik, Luruper Chaussee 149, D-22761 Hamburg, Germany
Correspondence to: Jeroen A. van Bokhoven1 e-mail: j.a.vanbokhoven@chem.ethz.ch
Correspondence to: Tien-Lin Lee2 Current address: Diamond Light Source Ltd, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot OX11 0DE, UK
Correspondence to: Tien-Lin Lee2 e-mail: tien-lin.lee@diamond.ac.uk
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