Abstract

In this study, we report a new, simple approach to the preparation of high-surface-area zeolitic silica (HZS) with well-defined mesoporosity by combining hydrothermal synthesis and sol–gel processing. N₂ adsorption–desorption measurements show that HZS has a BET surface area of 678–723 m² g⁻¹ and well-defined bimodal pores at 5.5 and 26.0–34.5 Å. XRD, TEM and FT-IR show that HZS has a typical zeolite MFI structure. HZS is thermally stable and has tunable pore size and pore volume, and thus is promising for applications in catalysis, separation, and microelectronics. The described approach also appears general and may be readily extended to zeolitic aluminosilicates by using suspensions of other zeolite nanoparticles.