Compared with the intensive fundamental research and practical application development of zeolites in the fields of photocatalysis, separation, ion exchange, and antimicrobial, research on the luminescence from optically functionalized zeolites is still at a juvenile stage. So far, plenty of important potential applications based on luminescent zeolites, such as light harvesting, phosphors, optical encoding/recording, micro-lasers, chemical sensors, and bio-imaging, have been demonstrated. What’s more, it has been shown that the porous crystalline nature of zeolites makes them an excellent matrix for investigating the fundamental physics of the sub-nm-scale luminescent metal clusters, which is still not sufficiently clear till now. Due to its significance, luminescent zeolites functionalized by luminescence-active guest species in various types including organic dye molecules, rare earth (RE) ions, bismuth ions, and d10 metal ions are reviewed in this chapter, dedicating to presenting some representative work on luminescent zeolites during the past few decades, from materials design, preparation, to application demonstrations, in hope to boost more research interest and strength in this community.
Part of the book: Zeolites