Green synthesis of nano-H-ZSM-5 zeolite single-crystal aggregates via an in situ reconstruction of the topology of natural clay

The synthesis of zeolites from natural aluminosilicate minerals is environmentally sustainable. However, the preparation of nano-ZSM-5 zeolite single crystals via the facile “silica–alumina homologation” of natural clay remains challenging. This paper highlights a novel strategy for the synthesis of defect-free, highly crystalline nano-H-ZSM-5 with a uniform morphology through the kinetically controlled in situ reconstruction of the topology of natural clay within a solid-state-like system. Crystal nucleation and growth were decoupled by aging to control the crystal size. The “homogeneous silica–alumina” property of natural clay was found to be directly inherited by nano-H-ZSM-5 to provide uniformly distributed acidic sites for catalysis. This was demonstrated by methanol-to-propylene conversion, wherein the performance of the obtained crystals was superior to that of commercial ZSM-5. This strategy promotes the development of natural silica–aluminate clay resources and allows the scalable production of high-quality nano-H-ZSM-5 single crystals for heterogeneous catalysis .