3D ED for the localization of cations in potassium exchanged and partially dehydrated nano Y zeolite†

Abstract

Zeolites, microporous crystalline aluminosilicates, play a vital role in catalysis and adsorption. Cation positioning strongly affects their properties but is difficult to determine in nano-zeolites due to limitations of conventional diffraction techniques. In this study, precession electron diffraction tomography (PEDT) was used to localize K⁺ cations in synthetic nano-faujasite. Applying dynamical theory enabled accurate nanoscale characterization despite small crystal size. The experimental results were successfully compared with distributions from Monte Carlo simulations.