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Project

SAXS investigation of silicate oligomerisation and zeolite nucleation in hydrated silicate ionic liquids

Recently we have invented optically transparent, purely inorganic, hydrated silicate ionic liquids, that can be considered as the room temperature variant of a high temperature silicate melt. These hydrated ionic liquids readily form zeolites upon mild heating, while remaining fully compatible with molecular level characterisation techniques (SAXS, NMR and DLS) and therefore offer an exceptional potential for multi diagnostic investigation of zeolite nucleation and crystallisation. The here proposed SAXS study aims to provide a highly consistent dataset and detailed view of the speciation changes occurring at early stages of silicate oligo- and polymerization preceding zeolite formation. This will subsequently be complemented with DLS and NMR characterisation on the same system. Compilation of all these different sources of information into a single model, covering multiple length scales will readily indicate the processes that can be controlled to guide nucleation and growth of the zeolite via routes that will spawn crystals that are tailored towards specific applications.

Date:1 Jan 2018 →  31 Dec 2018
Keywords:SAXS investigation, Hydrated silicate ionic liquids
Disciplines:Inorganic chemistry, Organic chemistry, Theoretical and computational chemistry, Other chemical sciences