Zeolite A with waste material: Morphological effect of laser treatments in air

The goal of this work is to investigate the action of femtosecond (fs) laser treatment performed under atmospheric conditions on morphology of zeolite A (LTA topology) synthesized with the addition of a waste material rich in iron such as red mud (RMFe-LTA) or introducing nanomagnetite (NMFe-LTA) during the hydrothermal synthesis. Both zeolite samples were analyzed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) technique. LTA zeolite formed using pure sources was assumed as reference. The results confirm that the presence of iron has a significant influence on laser-matter interactions affecting the morphology of the final treated synthetic material. Comparing to our previous data performed in vacuum conditions, these new results indicate that zeolite structure is generally preserved by fs laser treatment under atmospheric conditions although the presence of the Fe oxides distributed on the zeolite surfaces due to the use of red mud or in the form of nanomagnetite at specific locations, determines clear changes in treated zeolite morphology. However, the best performing results in terms of homogeneity of treatment and potential improvement of hydrophilic surface properties take places on zeolite formed with the addition of waste material (RMFe-LTA).