Formation of a unique glass by spark plasma sintering of a zeolite

A simple approach, order–disorder transition (ODT), has been developed to synthesize a novel glass using ZSM-5 as starting materials. In this process, the ZSM-5 powders were pressed uniaxially in a graphite die and rapidly sintered using spark plasma sintering (SPS). High-resolution transmission electron microscopic images revealed that a few crystalline zeolite fragments were still preserved locally inside the SPS consolidated sample. Vickers microhardness and fracture toughness of this as-prepared transparent glass sample at room temperature reaches 7.3 ± 0.2 GPa and 2.0 ± 0.3MPa·m^1/2, respectively. It is very interesting that these novel bulk transparent glasses exhibit ultraviolet photoluminescence (PL) properties at about ∼360 nm.