Best poster award during SIMEM Doctoral School Day 16 has been attributed to Kamila Matysiak.
 

Preparation and modification of nanosized zeolites

Kamila Matysiak, Sarah Komaty, Veselina Georgieva, Valentin Valtchev, Svetlana Mintova*

Laboratoire Catalyse & Spectrochimie (LCS), ENSICAEN, CNRS 6 Bd Maréchal Juin 14000 Caen, France

The interest towards finding new applications of nanozeolites expands even further, due to their physiochemical properties such as high external surface area, controlled pore volume, high thermal and chemical stability.¹ These properties make nanozeolites useful for sensor applications, ion exchange, sorption and catalysis processes.² The valuable attribute of these materials is the ability to selectively detect for examples oxygen and carbon dioxide, which is important for fermentation processes as well as atmosphere monitoring by the usage of biological and chemical sensors.

The present study introduces the preparation of template-free nanosized zeolites with different pore architecture for detection of O₂ and CO₂ in gas phase. The zeolite nanocrystals with homogenous particles distribution were synthesised from colloidal precursor suspensions, followed by hydrothermal treatment and post synthesis modification resulting in the introduction of various ions. The metal ions are essential and bring additional selectivity and improve sorption capacity of the modified zeolites toward different gases like NO, NO₂, O₂, CO and CO. The detection of O₂ and CO₂ is significantly important in food industry, clinical, environmental analysis.³

The aim of this research is to synthesize, modify, and assembly the modified nanosized zeolites in films or self-supported bodies in order to study their sorption behaviour towards O₂ and CO_2. The as synthesized and modified zeolite nanocrystals were thoroughly characterized by in-situ IR, XRD, UV–vis spectroscopy, TG and HRTEM.