Influence of Zeolite Framework Flexibility

It is known that the flexibility of the zeolite framework arises from the flexibility of the Si-O-Si joints linking rigid Si04 tetrahedra. This feature allows for 

Other MFl-type zeolite-sorbate systems are known to exhibit similar behavior. In a recent study, Yu et al. [34] reported that at saturated loadings of -hexane a single MFl-type zeolite unit cell has an overall volume expansion of 2.3%, which can correlate to shrinkage in non-zeoUtic pores up to 7 nm for a 1 tm crystal when isotropic expansion is assumed. It was demonstrated that, even in membranes with large number of defects, the crystallite swelling caused the membrane to achieve significant separation between n-hexane and trimethylbenzene, iso-octane and 2,2-dimethylbutane using pervaporation [34]. 

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