Journal of Porous Materials 12: 143–149, 2005 c  2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. Manufactured in The Netherlands. Dispersion and Solid State Ion Exchange of VCl 3 , CrCl 3 ·6H 2 O, MnCl 2 ·4H 2 O and CoCl 2 ·6H 2 O onto the Surface of NaY Zeolite Using Microwave Irradiation M. ZENDEHDEL ∗ Department of Chemistry, Arak University, Arak, Iran M. KOOTI Department of Chemistry, Shahid Chamran University, Ahwaz, Iran M.M. AMINI Department of Chemistry, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran Received April 12, 2004; Revised November 16, 2004 Abstract. Transition metal/Y zeolites have been prepared by solid state ion exchange with microwave irradiation of mechanical mixtures of VCl 3 , CrCl 3 · 6H 2 O, MnCl 2 · 4H 2 O or CoCl 2 · 6H 2 O with NaY zeolite at 900 W in 10–20 min. The prepared transition metal/Y zeolites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy (IR), simultaneous thermal analysis (STA) and surface area measurement (BET). Concentration of dispersed transition metal on zeolite was measured and results revealed that transition metal was dispersed and ion exchanged onto the surface of NaY zeolite. Keywords: solid-state ion exchange, transition metal, zeolites, microwave irradiation, dispersion 1. Introduction Metal/zeolites are important class of materials and have many applications such as catalyst for the decomposi- tion of nitrogen oxide to nitrogen and conversion of carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide, the two most im- portant reactions from environmental point of view [1, 2]. In addition to the Si/Al ratio, which affects acid properties of zeolite [3], the exchange of mono- valant ions with polyvalent cations creates very strong acidic centers by hydrolysis phenomenon and improves the catalytic properties of it [4]. Introducing transition metal cations into crystalline alumino silicates and re- lated materials is a well established method for the preparation of metal/zeolites, modification of zeolites ∗ To whom correspondence should be addressed. and improvement of their catalytic activity. In majority of studies, metal ions have been introduced into zeolite by aqueous solution, [5, 6] through an ion exchange process. Furthermore, it is well established that the ion exchange process can be carried out in solid state phase between zeolite and metal containing species at ele- vated temperatures [7, 8] by prolonged heating [9, 10]. However, ion exchange process in solid state is very time consuming but processing time can be reduced significantly by microwave heating [11]. In this work, VCl 3 , CrCl 3 ·6H 2 O, MnCl 2 ·4H 2 O, CoCl 2 ·6H 2 O/NaY zeolites have been prepared by solid-state ion exchange with the aid of microwave irra- diation. Infrared spectroscopy (IR), thermograviomet- ric analysis (TGA/DTA), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and BET surface area measurements have been used for the evaluation of ion exchanged zeolites.