The article Zeolite Catalysts with Tunable Hierarchy Factor by Pore-Growth Moderators (Adv. Funct. Mater. 2009, 19, 3972-3979), co-authored by Javier Pérez-Ramírez, Danny Verboekend, Adriana Bonilla and Sònia Abelló, has been highlighted on the front-cover of Advanced Functional Materials on its last issue of the year.The authors introduce the hierarchy factor as a valuable descriptor to categorize hierarchical zeolites and to optimize their design for catalytic applications and they also demonstrate a direct correlation between the catalytic performance of ZSM-5 in benzene alkylation and the hierarchy factor. Maximization of the hierarchy factor is achieved by enhancing the mesopore surface area without reducing the micropore volume. For this purpose, a novel desilication variant involving NaOH treatment in the presence of pore growth moderators (quaternary ammonium cations) is presented.

Pérez-Ramírez recent achievements have been highlighted in Chemical & Engineering News, as well as announced on the webs Materials Views and C2W (in Dutch).

Moreover, in Adrian Miller’s words (Editor of Advanced Functional Materials) the latest front cover really goes above and beyond. I was blown away by this cover when we first received the suggestion, and it was the talk of the office for weeks. As far as I know, we’ve never published a painting as a front cover before.