Making New Materials - Zeolites

In Brief

Zeolites are important nanoporous materials with many applications, including use in laundry detergents, as industrial catalysts and for cleaning up nuclear waste. Zeolites have a cage-like structure which enables them to trap charged particles called cations. Scientists from the University of Birmingham have been using Diamond to investigate new ways of locating cations and nanoparticles within different types of zeolites, this is important in order to understand and improve their use.

In detail

Zeolite A is perhaps the prototypical and most studied synthetic zeolite. There are four commonly accepted sites for cations (see below), but frequently the cations are spread out over severally partially occupied sites and therefore it is difficult to find them. A group led by Dr Joseph Hriljac at the University of Birmingham is exploring the possibility of using the Pair Distribution Function (PDF) to locate the exact positions of cations within the pores of zeolite A.

High energy (60 keV) X-ray scattering data was collected at beam line I15 for a series of zeolites with Na, Zn, Ca and Ag cations, in both hydrated and dehydrated states. Data was also collected for ITQ-29, the pure silicon form with no cations.