Zeolite is typically a class of crystalline microporous aluminosilicates that are constructed by SiO₄ and AlO₄ tetrahedra. Because of the unique porous structures, strong Brönsted acidity, molecular-level shape selectivity, exchangeable cations, and high thermal/hydrothermal stability, zeolites are widely used as catalysts, adsorbents, and ion-exchangers in industry. The activity, selectivity, and stability/durability of zeolites in the applications are closely related to their Si/Al ratios and Al distributions in the framework. In this review, we discussed the basic principles and the state-of-the-art methodologies for regulating the Si/Al ratios and Al distributions of zeolites, including seed-assisted recipe modification, interzeolite transformation, fluoride media, and usage of organic structure-directing agents (OSDAs), etc. The conventional and newly developed characterization methods on determining the Si/Al ratios and Al distributions were summarized, which include the X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), solid state ²⁹Si/²⁷Al Magic-Angle-Spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (²⁹Si/²⁷Al MAS NMR), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), etc. The impact of the Si/Al ratios and Al distributions on the catalysis, adsorption/separation, and ion-exchange performance of zeolites were subsequently demonstrated. Finally, we presented the perspective on the precise control of the Si/Al ratios and Al distributions of zeolites and the corresponding challenges.

Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) offers a valuable opportunity to improve the efficiency of photocatalysts. However, plasmonic enhancement of photoconversion is still limited, as most of metal-semiconductor building blocks depend on LSPR contribution of isolated metal nanoparticles. In this contribution, the concept of collective excitation of embedded metal nanoparticles is demonstrated as an effective strategy to enhance the utilization of plasmonic energy. The contribution of Au-nanochain to the enhancement of photoconversion is 3.5 times increase in comparison with that of conventional isolated Au nanoparticles. Experimental characterization and theoretical simulation show that strongly coupled plasmonic nanostructure of Au-nanochain give rise to highly intensive electromagnetic field. The enhanced strength of electromagnetic field essentially boosts the formation rate of electron-hole pair in semiconductor, and ultimately improves photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity of semiconductor photocatalysts. The concept of embedded coupled-metal nanostructure represents a promising strategy for the rational design of high-performance photocatalysts.

Separation of mixture is always necessarily required in modern industry, especially in fine chemical, petrochemical, coal chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The challenge of the separation process is usually associated with small molecules with very similar physical and chemical properties. Among the separation techniques, the commonly used high-pressure cryogenic distillation process with combination of high pressure and very low temperature is heavily energy-consuming, which accounts for the major production costs as well as 10–15% of the world's energy consumption. To this end, the adsorptive separation process based on zeolite sorbents is a promising lower-energy alternative and the performance is directly determined by the zeolite sorbents. In this review, we surveyed the separation mechanisms based on the steric, equilibrium, kinetic and ‘trapdoor’ effect, and summarized the recent advances in adsorptive separation via zeolites including CO₂, light olefins, C₈ aromatics and hydrogen isotopes. Furthermore, we provided the perspectives on the rational design of zeolite sorbents for the absolute separation of mixtures.

Activation of O₂ is a critical step in heterogeneous catalytic oxidation. Here, the concept of increased electron donors induced by nitrogen vacancy is adopted to propose an efficient strategy to develop highly active and stable catalysts for molecular O₂ activation. Carbon nitride with nitrogen vacancies is prepared to serve as a support as well as electron sink to construct a synergistic catalyst with Pt nanoparticles. Extensive characterizations combined with the first-principles calculations reveal that nitrogen vacancies with excess electrons could effectively stabilize metallic Pt nanoparticles by strong p-d coupling. The Pt atoms and the dangling carbon atoms surround the vacancy can synergistically donate electrons to the antibonding orbital of the adsorbed O₂. This synergistic catalyst shows great enhancement of catalytic performance and durability in toluene oxidation. The introduction of electron-rich non-oxide substrate is an innovative strategy to develop active Pt-based oxidation catalysts, which could be conceivably extended to a variety of metal-based catalysts for catalytic oxidation.