PNNL

Abstract

Zeolite delamination increases the external surface area available for catalyzing the conversion of bulky molecules. To gain fundamental understanding of the delam-ination process, we used three-dimensional (3-D) imaging in scanning transmission electron microscopy to obtain tomo-grams on the nanoscale showing that the delamination pro-ceeds through two distinct key steps: a chemical treatment that leads to a swelled material and a subsequent calcination that leads to curling and peeling off of delaminated zeolite sheets. The results characterize the direct, local, 3-D mor-phological changes accompanying delaminated materials synthesis. We acknowledge support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Grant DE-SC0005822, and the LDRD program at the Pacific North-west National Laboratory (PNNL). The experiments were performed in the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a national scientific user facility sponsored by the Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research and located at PNNL. PNNL is operated by Battelle for the DOE under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830.