Angewandte Chemie | 2019
Targeted Synthesis of a Zeolite with Pre-Established Framework Topology.
Abstract
Given their great potential as new industrial catalysts and adsorbents, the search for unprecedented zeolite structures is of major importance in nanoporous materials chemistry. However, although an innumerable number of theoretical frameworks have been proposed, none of them have been synthesized by a priori design yet. Here, we have generated a library of diazolium-based cations inspired from the organic structure-directing agents (OSDAs) recently reported to give two structurally related zeolites PST-21 and PST-22 under highly concentrated excess fluoride conditions and compared the stabilization energies of each OSDA cation in ten pre-established hypothetical structures. A combination of the ability of the OSDA selected in this way with the excess fluoride approach has allowed us to crystallize PST-30, the targeted aluminosilicate zeolite structure. We anticipate that our scheme, which aims to rationally couple the ability of computationally predicted OSDAs into an experimental setup, will take a step forward in the synthesis of hypothetical zeolites with desired properties.