Prospect of Sukabumi natural zeolite for petrochemical industry: Preparation and characterization of natural zeolite

Most of process industries, including chemical, petrochemical and oleochemical needed catalysts for processing. Catalyst has an important role to accelerate the reaction process of final product. Zeolite can also have an active role in the conversion of raw material as catalysts providing the required selectivity towards base chemicals. Among the catalysts for hydrocarbon catalytic cracking, ZSM-5 zeolite is the most widely used since its acidity, special pore structure and it has more than five Si/Al ratios. Indonesia has abundant mineral resources used as natural zeolites for some important industries application. The natural zeolites contain some impurities and its normally was activated to open the pore, remove the organic impurities and increase the Si/Al ratio. This research studied the activation of the Sukabumi's zeolite as catalyst candidate for petrochemical purpose compared to the commercial catalyst ZSM-5 with Si/Al ratio of 23. The produced samples were characterized using XRD, FTIR, SEM and EDX, and BET. Both of activated zeolites show an increasing trend in crystallite size, crystallinity degree, Si/Al ratio, and surface area in range of 30-40% compared to the natural zeolite-parent. While the infrared spectrum indicates the 70% similarities to the specific peaks of H-ZSM5.