The influencing factors of hydrothermal synthesis of ZSM-5 zeolite and its adsorption of phenol, quinoline and indole

The factors influencing the hydrothermal synthesis of ZSM-5 have been investigated in detail, such as silicon source, template, pH, reaction temperature, etc The type of template plays a key role. It is difficult to synthesize ZSM-5 without template or using inorganic template under our research conditions. However, the organic template of tetrapropylammonium bromide (TPABr) or n-butylamine (BTA) is beneficial to the synthesis of HZSM-5. The pH range of 10.79–11.14 is favorable for the synthesis of HZSM-5 zeolite. When temperature is greater than or equal to 160 °C, the synthesis of target zeolites is easy. However, if temperature is ≤140 °C, the synthesized product belongs to amorphous solid. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) shows that the morphology of HZSM-5 crystal is hexagonal columnar. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis shows the synthesized product has a good ZSM-5 skeleton structure. The synthetic HZSM-5 zeolite has the BET specific surface area of about 387.326 m2 g−1. The adsorption capacities of the synthesized HZSM-5 for phenol, quinoline and indole can reach up to 43.54 mg g−1, 83.10 mg g−1 and 69.51 mg g−1, respectively.