The most effective approach to practical exploitation of the layered solids that often have unique valuable properties-such as graphene, clays, and other compounds-is by dispersion into colloidal suspensions of monolayers, called liquid exfoliation. This fundamentally expected behavior can be used to deposit monolayers on supports or to reassemble into hierarchical materials to produce, by design, catalysts, nanodevices, films, drug delivery systems, and other products. Zeolites have been known as extraordinary catalysts and sorbents with three-dimensional structures but emerged as an unexpected new class of layered solids contributing previously unknown valuable features: catalytically active layers with pores inside or across. The self-evident question of layered zeolite exfoliation has remained unresolved for three decades. Here, we report the first direct exfoliation of zeolites into suspension of monolayers as proof of the concept, which enables diverse applications including membranes and hierarchical catalysts with improved access.

Department of Physical and Macromolecular Chemistry Faculty of Sciences Charles University Hlavova 8 128 43 Prague 2 Czech Republic

Faculty of Chemistry Jagiellonian University Gronostajowa 2 30 387 Kraków Poland

International Centre for Materials Nanoarchitectonics 1 1 Namiki Tsukuba Ibaraki 305 0044 Japan

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