OPENING THE PATHWAY TOWARDS DENDRITIC ZEOLITES

ongoing

A great interest has arisen in the past ten years on synthetic materials exhibiting a dendritic 3D superstructure due to their outstanding and singular properties and to the high number of potential applications in a variety of relevant fields. Starting from silica nanoparticles, dendritic structures have now been extended to other compositions. However, the development of dendritic zeolites has remained elusive in spite of their huge scientific and industrial relevance. Being considered mature materials, the reality is that the scientific publications on zeolites is constantly and rapidly growing. Thus, over 48,000 articles can be found in literature databases by 2020 including the term “zeolite” in the title, with about 2,370 contributions just in 2020. However, almost no records are found when the term “dendritic” is added to the search. In this context, I have envisaged TODENZE as a very ambitious and high-risk project aimed to develop a general strategy for the synthesis of zeolites with dendritic 3D superstructures. The achievement of this goal will have a strong impact in the scientific community working with porous solids and also in many other fields and topics in which dendritic zeolites are expected to exhibit a quite better performance than the state-of-the-art zeolitic materials. Starting from preliminary results of my research group, I have structured the TODENZE project according to 4 major objectives in relation to the concept of dendritic zeolites: i) Unveiling the synthesis mechanism; ii) Expanding and generalizing the concept, iii) Assessing the properties, and iv) Finding relevant applications. In particular, their use as catalysts for biomass valorisation and as nanocarriers for combined drug/gene therapy will be explored. Achievement of the TODENZE goals will provide remarkable benefits and high-gains in strategic areas such as environment, sustainable energy, circular economy and health.