Exploring the surface characteristics of hydrothermal synthesized X-zeolite at different temperatures through heated microscope-automatic image analyses

This work aims to select an optimal temperature for synthesized X-zeolite to heat and improve its properties without deformation. To achieve this objective, X-zeolite material was synthesized and characterized using X-ray diffraction (DRX) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (IRTF), then analyzed using a heating microscope-automatic image. The analysis using the Heating Microscope-Automatic Image provides the variation of the external surface, height, and width of a zeolite particle aggregate as a function of temperature, ranging from 49 °C to 1400 °C with a heat rate of 10°C/min. The calcination process was carried out at the following temperatures: 700, 800, 850, and 900 °C. BET analysis of zeolite samples (raw and calcined) was performed to validate the results obtained from the heating microscope. The best results were obtained at 800 °C, indicating that this temperature is the limit at which the Na-X zeolite can resist deformation without undergoing structural changes. This can be directly determined through the analysis using the heating microscope-automatic image.