MOLEGULAR SIEVE ZEOLITE TECHNOLOGY: THE FIRST TWENTY- PIVE YEARS* Edith M. Flanigen Union Carbide Corporation Tarrytown Technical Center Tarrytown, New York 10591, USA ABSTRACT In twenty-five years molecular sieve zeolites have substantially impacted adsorption and catalytic process technology throughout the chemical process industries; provided timely solutions to energy and environmental problems; and grown to over a hundred million dollar industry worldwide. The evolution in zeolite materials with improved or novel properties has strongly influenced the expansion of their applications, and provided new Elexibility in the design of products and processes. INTRODUCTI The year 1979 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the commercial birth of molecular sieve zeolites as a new class of industrial materials. They were introduced in late 1954 as adsorbents for industrial separations and purifications. Since that time the fascination with and the elegance of, this unique class of materials has generated a masse of scientific literature describing their synthesis, properties, struecure and applications, which probably now numbers well aver 15,000 scientific contributions and over 10,000 issued patents. The molecular sieve industry has been projected to have grown into an estimated quarter of a billion dollar market {1} serving all of the major segments of the chemical process industries including major applications in the petroleum refining and petrochemical industries, and has generated a myriad of other adsorption, catalytic, * This article is used as reference material for J. A. Rabo's lecture on “Historical Aspects of Zeolites"