Fluoride-free synthesis of plate-like Sn-Beta zeolite via aerosol-assisted hydrothermal route

Sn-Beta zeolite is a versatile heterogeneous Lewis acid catalyst. Herein, we report a fluoride-free aerosol-assisted hydrothermal synthesis of plate-like Sn-Beta zeolite, which overcomes the environmental problems caused by traditional fluorinated hydrothermal method. The synthesis process, after the optimation by varying seed types, seed loadings, templating agent amounts, and crystallization times, results in the plate-like Sn-Beta zeolite with high relative crystallinity and mesoporous pore volume. Furthermore, the zeolites synthesized using this method exhibit superior catalytic performance in the Baeyer-Villiger oxidation of 2-adamantanone as compared to the sample synthesized by traditional fluoride-assisted hydrothermal method. The physicochemical characteristics of the two samples have been systematically compared. The enhancement of catalytic performance can be ascribed to their greater external surface area, which is more accessible to large molecules.