Synthesis and Characterization of High Aluminum Zeolite X from Technical Grade Materials

Seyed Kamal Masoudian (Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI), Catalysis and Nanotechnology Research Division, P.O. Box 14665137, Tehran)
Sepehr Sadighi (Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI), Catalysis and Nanotechnology Research Division, P.O. Box 14665137, Tehran)
Ali Abbasi (Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI), Catalysis and Nanotechnology Research Division, P.O. Box 14665137, Tehran)

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis
2013: BCREC Volume 8 Issue 1 Year 2013 (June 2013)

Zeolites are widely used as ion exchangers, adsorbents, separation materials and catalyst due to their well-tailored and highly-reproducible structures; therefore, the synthesis of zeolite from low grade resources can be interested. In the present work, high aluminum zeolite X was prepared from mixing technical grade sodium aluminate and sodium silicate solutions at temperatures between 70°C and 100°C. The synthesized zeolite X was characterized by SEM and X-ray methods according to ASTM standard procedures. The results showed that aging of the synthesis medium at the room temperature considerably increased the selectivity of zeolite X formation. On the other hand, high temperature of reaction mixture during crystallization formed zeolite A in the product; therefore, it decreased the purity of zeolite X. In addition, it was found that increasing H2O/Na2O and decreasing Na2O/SiO2 molar ratios in the reaction mixture resulted product with higher purity. © 2013 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)