Zeolite characterization by time-of-fight secondary ion mass spectrometry

Abstract

As the most commonly used characterization method, the X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) has been widely used for detcting zeolites and zeolite-like material. Zeolites have been widely studied for many applications in various field such as catalysis, purification, and separation. Unfortunately, for zeolite characterization, XRD has a limitation on sensitivity. By using XRD, the zeolite structures are only detectable when the zeolite content is more than 3% of the mixture. In order to overcome this limitation, the Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (ToF-SIMS) is examined in this study. With the assistance of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for zeolite detection, the sensitivity limit of this technique is compared with ToF-SIMS. Different zeolite species ZSM-5, Sil-1, NaA, and NaX (MFI-, FAU- and LTA-type) are tested in this research as mixtures with crystallized silica. Results indicates that and the sensitivity limit of ToF-SIMS is higher than that of XRD.

Date of Award	2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology