Facile active gel-enhanced synthesis of molecular-sieving membranes with record-breaking performance

Microporous frameworks serve as excellent foundational components for constructing selectively permeable continuous membranes or films with broad practical applications. Current crystalline microporous membranes/films often suffer from limited molecular sieving performance due to intergranular boundary defects introduced during the prolonged conventional hydrothermal/solvothermal synthesis. Here, we report an active gel-enhanced synthesis route that markedly accelerates the fabrication of slow-crystallizing microporous high-silica zeolite membranes, reducing synthesis time from days to hours-approximately 20-fold faster than conventional methods. This achievement was made possible by combining a supersaturated, nucleus-rich active gel with a substantially enhanced crystallization rate, enabling uniform and sufficient nucleus loading on the support and the subsequent rapid formation of continuous zeolite membranes, regardless of support morphology or the presence of seeds. Using this strategy, we rapidly synthesized high-quality zeolite membranes that demonstrated record-breaking separation performance over previously reported counterparts-one order of magnitude higher in separation performance index. This rapid fabrication method for continuous microporous membranes/films could greatly broaden their application fields.