A priori control of zeolite phase competition and intergrowth with high-throughput simulations

• Zeolites are versatile catalysts and molecular sieves with large topological diversity, but managing phase competition in zeolite synthesis is an empirical, labor-intensive task. In this work, we controlled phase selectivity in templated zeolite synthesis from first principles by combining high-throughput atomistic simulations, literature mining, human-computer interaction, synthesis, and characterization. Proposed binding metrics distilled from more than 586,000 zeolite-molecule simulations reproduced the extracted literature and rationalized framework competition in the design of organic structure-directing agents. Energetic, geometric, and electrostatic descriptors of template molecules were found to regulate synthetic accessibility windows and aluminum distributions in pure-phase zeolites. Furthermore, these parameters allowed us to realize an intergrowth zeolite through a single bi-selective template. The computation-first approach enables control of both zeolite synthesis and structure composition using a priori theoretical descriptors.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Kemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Chemical Sciences (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)