Physicochemical Characterization of Silicalite-1 Nanophase Material

Abstract

A silicalite-1 nanophase material with an elementary particle size of 18−100 nm is synthesized from clear solution and isolated and purified using supercentrifugation. The nanopowder is characterized in detail using scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, attenuated force microscopy, 29 Si magic angle spinning NMR, 13 C cross polarization magic angle spinning NMR, X-ray diffraction, dinitrogen physisorption, and thermogravimetric analysis and compared with micrometer-sized silicalite-1. The nanosized and micrometer-sized materials have many common properties including the refined structure and the nature and concentrations of tetrapropylammonium species incorporated during the synthesis. Unique properties of the nanophase are a splitting of the characteristic framework vibration at 550 cm -1 into a doublet at 555 and 570 cm -1, a high concentration of defect sites, and a strain in the crystallites along the “ a ” crystallographic direction. The nanophase exhibits a two-stage dinitrogen physisorption in the low-pressure region, ascribed to adsorptions in micropores created by the stacking of the nanoparticles in addition to adsorptions in the intracrystalline micropores.