Low-silica Cu-CHA Zeolite Enriched with Al Pairs Transcribed from Silicoaluminophosphate Seed: Synthesis and Ammonia Selective Catalytic Reduction Performance

Cu-exchanged low-silica CHA zeolites (Si/Al≤4) synthesized without organic templates are promising candidate catalysts for ammonia selective catalytic reduction of nitrogen oxides (NH₃-SCR), but their practical application is restricted due to the low hydrothermal stability. Here, inspired by the transcription from duplex DNA to RNA, we synthesized Al pairs enriched low-silica CHA zeolite (CHA-SPAEI, Si/Al=3.7) by using silicoaluminophosphate (SAPO) featured by strict alternation of −Al−O−P(Si)−O−Al−O− tetrahedra as seed. The proportion of Al pairs in CHA−SPAEI is 78 %, which is much higher than that in the conventional low-silica CHA (CHA-LS, 52 %). After hydrothermal ageing at 800 °C for 6 h, Cu-exchanged CHA-SPAEI shows NO conversion above 90 % within 225–500 °C under a gas hourly space velocity of 200,000 h⁻¹, which is much better than that of Cu-exchanged CHA-LS. The spatial close proximity of Al pairs in CHA-SPAEI is confirmed by the ²⁷Al double-quantum single-quantum two-dimensional NMR analyses. The strict −P(Si)−O−Al−O−P(Si)−O- sequence in the fragments from the dissolution of SAPO seed promotes the Al pairs with the −Al−O−Si−O−Al−O− sequence via a transcription process. The utilization of aluminophosphate-based zeolites as seeds opens up a new avenue for the regulation of the Al distribution in zeolites.