Hierarchically porous zeolite featuring an alveolus-like microsphere for efficient oxidative desulfurization

Abstract

Bio-inspired catalyst materials with diverse functions and excellent performance are highly demanded for efficient catalytic conversion. However, precisely imitating the natural structures to achieve optimized performance is still highly challenging. Inspired by the fast mass diffusion and exchange ability of alveolus structures, we prepared a hierarchically macro–meso–microporous TS-1 zeolite microsphere with a precisely designed alveolus-like structure (HAS-TS-1) by developing a method that combined template and emulsion approaches. These alveolus-like zeolite microspheres possessed interconnected macropores (280 nm) and mesopores (40 nm), with a BET surface area of 484 m² g⁻¹. This novel bio-inspired structure showed a significantly enhanced adsorption ability for thiophenic molecules, which was four times greater than that exhibited by a microporous TS-1 zeolite. HAS-TS-1 exhibited excellent catalytic oxidative desulfurization performance of a series of bulky thiophenic molecules, completely removing 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene (DMDBT) in 15 min, which was twelve times faster than that observed using a TS-1 microsphere (180 min). The superiority of this bio-inspired hierarchically alveolus-like structure in mass transfer and diffusion may enable its advanced application in the fields of catalysis, energy, and sensors.