A surface-induced coating strategy for constructing hydrophobic zeolite composite to enhance the toluene adsorption in humid environment

Capturing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) under humid conditions using zeolites suffers from the dramatically decreasing adsorption capability with relative humidity (RH) increase. Herein, a surface-induced polymer coating method is proposed to design hydrophobic zeolite. The as-synthesized novel hydrophobic Y zeolite@hypercrosslinked polymer composite (Y@P) is demonstrated with excellent adsorption capability for VOCs. In particular, the toluene adsorption capacity of Y@P-2-80 composite is two times higher than that of Y zeolite, and the Qwet/Qdry values are 97.2% at 90 %RH, indicating that the toluene adsorption capability of Y@P-2-80 is almost unaffected by vapor. The proposed surface-induced polymer coating method provides a promising and universal strategy for effective VOCs capture under wet conditions using zeolites with enhanced hydrophobicity.