Synthesis of mesoporous catalytic materials

Claim 1

A process for synthesizing a molecular sieve material comprising an inorganic porous material having, after calcination, a bimodal pore size distribution comprising an arrangement of uniformly-sized mesopores having diameters of at least about 20 Å and an arrangement of micropores having diameters in the range of about 5 to 12 Å, an internal area greater than 200 m 2 /g and a thermal stability up to 800° C., which comprises preparing two reaction solutions, the first solution containing a source of silica and the second solution containing a quaternary ammonium surfactant having a hydrophilic ammonium group and a linear hydrophobic hydrocarbon chain, combining the first and second solutions and mixing the combination at a pH in the range of 8 to 13, stopping the mixing and forming the mixture into a solid product with the mixing and solid product formation being carried out at a temperature in the range of 0°-25° C., separating the solid product and subjecting the product to a two-stage heat treatment comprising the steps of raising the temperature of the solid product to about 100° to 150° C., holding the product at this temperature for a time of 0.5 to 24 hours, then raising the temperature of the product to a temperature of about 300° to 600° C. and holding the product at this higher temperature for about 1 to 24 hours.