Narrowing Surface Aperture to Promote Adsorption and Selectivity of p-Cresol and m-Cresol Over the Short b-Axis ZSM-5

m -Cresol and p -cresol cannot be effectively separated using conventional distillation because of their proximate boiling temperatures. This study investigated the adsorption separation of cresol using the short b -axis ZSM-5 synthesized via a urea-assisted method. In contrast to the ellipsoidal HZSM-5, which was approximately 1 μm in length, the thickness of the sheet-like HZSM-5 decreased to 36 nm, resulting in an increase in total cresol adsorption capacity from 76 to 122 mg/g. Applying the CLD method, an increase in the TEOS:HZSM-5 ratio from 0 to 0.83 resulted in the increase in p -cresol adsorption capacity from 69 to 106 mg/g, while m -cresol adsorption capacity dropped from 53 to 12 mg/g. The adsorption selectivity significantly rose from 1.3 to 9.7. The adsorption kinetics and isotherms demonstrated that the process was exothermic for p -cresol and endothermic for m -cresol.