Controllable synthesis of hierarchical porous petal-shaped SAPO-34 zeolite with excellent DTO performance

Abstract A hierarchical porous petal-shaped SAPO-34 zeolite was successfully synthesized via one-pot method by using the polymer of polyethylene glycol 20000 (PEG-20000) as structure-directing agents and the low-cost template of morpholine. The physicochemical properties of as-synthesized samples were investigated by XRD, SEM, TEM, FT-IR, EDS, N 2 adsorption-desorption and NH 3 -TPD measurement. The SEM and TEM results showed that many thin nanosheets with the thickness of 50–100 nm and the slit-porous channels could be observed in the petal-shaped SAPO-34 crystals. The nanosheets could significantly shorten the diffusion length and hierarchical porous structure could enhance the mass transfer. The catalytic test of dimethyl ether to olefins (DTO) revealed that the hierarchical porous petal-shaped SAPO-34 catalysts exhibited higher catalytic performance and longer catalyst lifetime compared with the conventional microporous cube-like SAPO-34 catalysts.