Porosity of microporous zeolites A, X and ZSM-5 studied by small angle X-ray scattering and nitrogen adsorption

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) using synchrotron radiation and nitrogen adsorption have been applied to characterizations of porosities and microporous structures for the zeolites of NaA, KA, CaA, NaX and ZSM-5. Besides the information on the external morphology of the particles of the zeolites, the complementation of the two techniques has revealed rich and consistent structural and surface information on the molecular scale crystalline pores of these zeolites. Analyses of the data suggest that the determined sizes of the micropores imply the pore spaces occupied by the probe molecules of water in the SAXS and nitrogen in adsorption techniques, respectively. The microporous information of NaA and KA are difficult to obtain from nitrogen adsorption, due to the blocking of nitrogen by their narrow channels, but have been satisfactorily measured by SAXS. The factors causing variations of the measured values of the parameters in different analysis methods have been discussed. (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd.