During the first half of the TODENZE project, a great part of the work has been focused on the synthesis, characterization and catalytic applications of ZSM-5 zeolite exhibiting a marked dendritic nano-architecture. In this way, it must be highlighted that ZSM-5 is one of the most relevant zeolites so far known from both scientific and technological points of view. Thus, more than 19,300 scientific articles have been already published including “ZSM-5” in the tittle/abstract/keywords, many of them dealing with the application of this material as a catalyst or support in a large variety of sectors, such as oil refining, petrochemistry, energy, environment, sensors, medicine, etc. This provides an idea of the huge impact that could be derived from the development of ZSM-5 zeolite showing a set of singular properties due to the presence of a dendritic nano-architecture.
The successful synthesis of dendritic ZSM-5 zeolite in the TODENZE project has been achieved by the combination of two strategies applied sequentially: i) preparation of protozeolitic nanounits and ii) functionalization of the latter with an amphiphilic organosilane, followed by crystallization under hydrothermal conditions. Preliminary investigations on the synthesis mechanism indicate that the formation of dendritic ZSM-5 occurs through a micelle-template pathway. The materials so obtained consist of a branched and radial arrangement of zeolite nanounits (about 5 nm size), which provides it with exceptional accessibility affording the processing of bulky molecules and the supporting of a variety of metal phases with high dispersion to develop multifunctional materials with advanced properties. In particular, dendritic ZSM-5 zeolites have shown so far to be very effective catalysts for the conversion of biomass-derived compounds into both sustainable aviation fuels precursors and bio-based chemicals, as well as in catalytic pyrolysis of plastics and the production of clean hydrogen by catalytic methane decomposition.
Likewise, the results obtained so far in the TODENZE project have shown the feasibility of extending this synthesis strategy to other zeolite structures different from the MFI one, as well as framework compositions beyond conventional aluminosilicate-based zeolites. The performance of these materials in a variety of applications, mainly as catalysts and nanocarriers, is being explored at present, hence it is expected these results will be the subject of several scientific articles in short.
