Molecular Simulation Studies of the Effect of Si/Al and Temperature On the Templated Synthesis of Pt Nanowires On VET-Type Zeolites

The synthesis of very thin metal nanowires is of special interest because of their unusual physical properties when compared with bulk materials.  Among the synthesis methods for metal nanowires, the templated synthesis is a convenient and simple method that provides control over size and shape of these particles.  The use of one-dimensional zeolites frameworks such as VET has been considered for these purposes.  Here molecular simulations results are presented on the combined effect of Si/Al and temperature on the formation of stable one dimensional Pt structures inside the pores of VET zeolite framework.  The results from grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations and geometry optimizations indicate that at high synthesis temperatures (623 K) and low Si/Al (3.25) quasicrystalline Pt nanowires are formed on the main pore channels of VET.  These quasicrystalline structures were more thermally stable than configurations obtained at other simulation conditions.