A study of binary adsorption of aromatics in completely siliceous zeolite ZSM-5 by FT-Raman spectroscopy

In the present work, binary adsorption of p-xylene and toluene in completely siliceous zeolite ZSM-5 was examined by FT-Raman spectroscopy in combination with powder X-ray diffraction. The results indicate that at total loadings of <= 4 molecules per unit cell (u.c.) both p-xylene and toluene molecules prefer to reside at the intersections of straight and zigzag channels. The structure of the sorbate/sorbent complexes likely belongs to orthorhombic. At high loadings of 7 and 8 molecules/u.c., the framework of the zeolite transforms to another orthorhombic phase. In this high-loaded phase, toluene molecules are distributed evenly in both the channel intersection and the midsection of straight channel. Although p-xylene has access to both the channel intersection and the zigzag channel, it does show a slight preference for the channel intersection. The adsorptive behavior of these aromatics at intermediate total loadings of 5 and 6 molecules/u.c. is more complicated because the zeolitic framework is a mixture of two different orthorhombic phases.