The diquaternary ammonium surfactant-directed synthesis of single-unit-cell nanowires of ZSM-5 zeolite.

Hierarchical ultrathin ZSM-5 zeolite samples with controllable crystal growth directions were realized by designing bifunctional soft templates with different hydrophobic alkyl chain groups. MFI-type crystal growth along the a-c plane and stacking along the b-axis could be controlled to form nanowires of ZSM-5, which exhibited better catalytic activity for phenol hydroxylation than nanosheets of ZSM-5.