Mesoporous carbon prepared from carbohydrate as hard template for hierarchical zeolites

A mesoporous carbon prepared from sucrose was successfully employed as a hard template to produce hierarchical silicalite-1, thus providing a very simple and inexpensive route to desirable zeolite catalysts from widely available raw materials. The porous carbon was prepared by hydrothermal treatment of a mixture of sucrose and ammonia followed by carbonization of the mixture in N-2 at high temperatures. The porous carbon produced by this method was subsequently applied as a hard template in the synthesis of mesoporous silicalite-1 and removed by combustion after synthesis. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected-area electron diffraction (SAD), thermal gravimetry (TG), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), N-2 physisorption measurements, Hg porosimetry and CHN elemental analysis techniques were applied to investigate the porous carbon template as well as the mesoporous zeolite single-crystal material.