Diseño y construcción de un reactor químico para la obtención de zeolitas sintéticas

Abstract

ABSTRACT Zeolites are aluminosilicates, a class of tectosilicates. Due to its physical and chemical properties such as absorption, high ion exchange capacity and microporous structure; zeolites present a large number of industrial applications like agricultural fertilizers, in the manufacture of urea sensors, catalysts, heavy metals removal, water treatment, among others. In the present research an equipment capable of synthesizing zeolites of several kinds by using microwaves as a heating system and starting from sources of silicon, aluminum and potassium as hydroxides, was designed and built. For the design and construction of the equipment several tests were carried out which made possible to modify the initial design until obtain an equipment that is able to accomplish the expected synthesis. To characterize the synthesized products X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) was used as analytical technique. The results acquired in this study shows that some types of zeolites can be synthesized by using the equipment constructed, reducing significantly the time of synthesis in comparison to a hydrothermal treatment.