Dendritic nanoarchitecture imparts ZSM-5 zeolite with enhanced adsorption and catalytic performance in energy applications

The development of zeolites possessing dendritic features represents a great opportunity for the design of novel materials with applications in a large variety of fields and,in particular,in the energy sector to afford its transition towards a low carbon system.In the current work,ZSM-5 zeolite showing a dendritic3D nanoarchitecture has been synthesized by the functionalization of protozeolitic nanounits with an amphiphilic organosilane,which provokes the branched aggregative growth of zeolite embryos.Dendritic ZSM-5 exhibits outstanding accessibility arising from a highly interconnected network of radially-oriented mesopores(3-10 nm)and large cavities(20-80 nm),which add to the zeolitic micropores,thus showing a well-defined trimodal pore size distribution.These singular features provide dendritic ZSM-5 with sharply enhanced performance in comparison with nano-and hierarchical reference materials when tested in a number of energy related applications,such as VOCs(toluene)adsorption(improved capacity),plastics(low-density polyethylene)catalytic cracking(boosted activity)and hydrogen production by methane catalytic decomposition(higher activity and deactivation resistance).