Triiodide Faujasites With Reactive, Ionic, Antimicrobial, and Catalytic Applications

Abstract

Zeolites are microporous materials widely used in industry for hosting and exchanging molecules and cations, but the inclusion of anions is severely limited by the anionic nature of the zeolitic framework. Here, we show that commercially available alkyl iodides and faujasite zeolites (one of the representative zeolite families) react in a tandem dehydroiodination–oxidation process under open-air reaction conditions, to give triiodide anions (I3−) inside the faujasite (I3−@faujasite), after releasing the corresponding alkene of the alkyl iodide and water as only by-products. This clean postsynthetic solid reaction does not employ any additive, solvent, or protecting atmosphere and can be carried out in multigram scale, to obtain up to ≈25 wt% I3− loadings inside the zeolites, bench stable for months. The I3−@faujasites are studied here as water disinfection agents, bacteria and yeast antiseptics, solid electrolytes, and catalytic solids, and, in many cases, outperform the activity of the state-of-the-art materials for each application. Besides, the densely packaged I3−@NaX does not disaggregate into hydrofluoric acid, which allows the stability of this zeolite in strong acidic media. This conceptually different anion incorporation methodology in faujasites open new avenues to the design of anion-containing microporous zeolitic materials, with controlled release if desired, for a wide variety of applications.