Intracrystalline Diffusion in Mesoporous Zeolites

Specially synthesized extra‐large crystallites of zeolite LTA with intentionally added mesoporosity are used for an in‐depth study of guest diffusion in hierarchical nanoporous materials by the pulsed field gradient NMR technique. Using propane as a guest molecule, intracrystalline mass transfer is demonstrated to be adequately described by a single effective diffusivity resulting from the weighted average of the diffusivities in the two (micro‐ and meso‐) pore spaces. Gas‐kinetic order‐of‐magnitude estimates of the diffusivities are in satisfactory agreement with the experimental data and are thus shown to provide a straightforward means for predicting and quantifying the benefit of hierarchically structured nanoporous materials in comparison with their purely microporous equivalent.