Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy Study of the Formation of Mesoporous Materials from the Zeolite Precursor

In this work, positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy was used for the structural characterisation of porous materials prepared from amorphous zeolite precursors acting as the starting materials and hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide acting as a mesoporous template. The best fits of the obtained lifetime spectra provide a four-component exponential decomposition. The lifetime values of the long-lived components point to the presence of mesoporous voids. Infrared and X-ray analyses show that the obtained materials consist partly of a crystalline zeolite structure.