National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 50(113), p. 14267-14271, 2016
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Significance Zeolites have greatly contributed to modern industries. Consumption of zeolites is expected to increase with the emergence of newly commercialized applications. Typical synthesis of zeolites relies on batchwise hydrothermal synthesis, which usually takes tens of hours or even several days to complete. People have thus long believed that the crystallization of zeolites is very slow in nature. We herein demonstrate the continuous flow synthesis of ZSM-5, an industrially important zeolite, on the order of seconds. Crystallization from amorphous state to full crystallinity could be completed in tens of or even several seconds. The synthesis on the order of seconds provides a great potential to facilitate the mass production as well as to deepen the fundamental understanding of zeolite crystallization.