We report the synthesis of a new kind of uniform hollow zeolite microspheres with hierarchical macro-/meso-/ microporosity by an efficient strategy combining bitemplating, steam-assisted crystallization and then a mild alkaline etching method. This novel product has a hollow architecture, highly crystallized zeolite shells and more importantly, high dye adsorption capabilities.Hollow microspheres with various components, from carbon, metals and polymers to oxides, have drawn extensive attention for their applications in catalysis, microreactors and biomedicines, etc.1-3 Among them, hollow silica mesoporous microspheres (HMS), commonly with mesoporous shells, are greatly favored, due to their advantages in mass diffusion and transport by making use of their large cavity volumes and mesopore channels on the shells.3 However, in most available reports, the silica or silicate shells are amorphous which may limit further applications in severe circumstance.Zeolites are a series of crystalline aluminosilicates which have been widely used as catalysts and adsorbents in oil refining, separation and environmental fields, etc., due to their unique architecture, high hydrothermal stability and sufficient numbers of catalytically active sites.4 In recent years, there has been increasing interest in developing hollow structured zeolites (HSZs), such as hollow zeolite boxes and spheres.5-10 Since a layer-by-layer (LbL) technique based on electrostatic interaction or hydrogen bonding was reported by Caruso, 5 there have been several reports on the syntheses of HSZs using hard templates, applying LbL and/or secondary growth synthesis approaches. or vapor-phase treatment. 7 In these ways, the shells are built of well-intergrown crystals so as to improve the mechanical strength of the obtained HSZs. More recently, two unique techniques for HSZs preparation involving an in situ transformation of silica spheres into ZSM-5 zeolite 11 under the assistance of SDA and using oil/water emulsions as templates have been reported, respectively. However, most of the above-mentioned methods were subject to the use of pre-fabricated building units such as nanozeolites. Therefore the morphology and size of HSZs are highly dependent on the hard template and the subsequent LbL technique, which further involved complicated multistep and timeconsuming coating processes. More importantly, very few reports can be found focusing on HSZs with mesopores on the shells which, however, are greatly favoured due to their advantages in mass diffusion and the utilization of cavity volumes.
9Herein, hollow mesoporous zeolite microspheres (HMZS) with secondary mesopores on the shells were synthesized by an efficient post steam-assisted crystallization and mild alkaline etching approach (SAC-MAE). Herein, SAC and MAE have been demonstrated as effective routes to synthesize mesoporous zeolite structure (MZS) and hollow zeolite boxes, respectively, by us and other groups.10,12 This novel product possesses uniform size of ca. 700 nm, hollow architecture, highly crys...