In this study, a highly siliceous ZSM-5 zeolite of elemental silicon to aluminium ratio of 365 was synthesized using rice husk ash (RHA) as a renewable source. The RHA was used to produce silica sol which, with the organic template tetrapropyl ammonium bromide (TPABr) as the structure directing agent went through hydrothermal reaction at low temperature and under atmospheric pressure in alkaline medium to form ZSM-5. The synthesized ZSM-5 was characterized using a variety of analytical techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) N2 adsorption and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) The specific surface area (SSA) was measured by the Brunauer, Emmet and Teller (BET) BET, Langmuir, and DFT methods. Furthermore, the pore volume and pore sizes were determined using Horvath-Kawazoe (H-K), Saito Foley (S-F) and Dubinin–Radushkevich (DR) and Density Functional Theory (DFT) methods and the results of these analysis compared well with the referenced ZSM-5.
Key words: ZSM-5; low temperature; RHA; Density Functional Theory; Horvath-Kawazoe; Saito Foley
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