This award supports Dr. Raul Lobo and a graduate student from the University of Delaware in a collaboration with Hellmut Eckert and Hubert Koller of the Department of Physical Chemistry at the University of M¼nster. The collaboration brings together the complementary capabilities of the German and U.S. groups to organic-inorganic interactions in arsenic-synthesized zeolites and their role in directing the formation of specific zeolite structures. The objective of the research is to obtain accurate structural and dynamic descriptions of the guest/host interactions of organic structure-directing agents in arsenic-synthesized zeolites. The work could lead to methods for constructing materials with novel pore architectures and to new, accurate structural models that can be used as the basis of realistic molecular calculations. The work could also have enormous implications for the understanding and optimization of the catalytic activity and selectivity of zeolites as industrial catalysts.
