Effect of Calcination Temperature of Kaolin Microspheres on the In situ Synthesis of ZSM-5

ZSM-5 zeolite has been successfully synthesized in-situ on calcined kaolin microspheres by the hydrothermal method using n-butylamine as a template. The supported ZSM-5 was characterized by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The effect of calcination temperature of kaolin microspheres on the in-situ synthesis of ZSM-5 was investigated. The influence of the pretreatment temperature on the properties of kaolin microspheres including phase transformation, amounts of active SiO₂ and Al₂O₃, and pore structures, was studied using fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), nitrogen adsorption and chemical analysis. The results showed that when the calcination temperature increased from 300 to 900 °C, the amount of active SiO₂ in the kaolin microspheres increased slightly and the amount of active Al₂O₃ initially increased rapidly and then decreased steadily. The surface area and pore volume of the kaolin calcined at both low and high temperatures was less than those of kaolin calcined at a medium temperature. The property changes of kaolin caused the relative crystallinity of in situ synthesized ZSM-5 to vary.