For the first step of adsorption, the organic contaminants are adsorbed on the outer or internal surface of the zeolite-based catalysts. Different types of zeolites have different structural properties (
e.g., pore opening and pore space) and surface hydrophobicity. They have effect on the adsorption of organic contaminants [
50]. First, the pore opening size of zeolites determines the mass transfer, including diffusion and accessibility of organic contaminants during adsorption process [
50,
51]. When the diameter of the organic contaminant is bigger than the pore opening size of the zeolite-based catalyst, the organic molecule can be adsorbed only on the outer surface of the catalyst. When the diameter of the organic contaminant is smaller than the pore-opening size of the zeolite-based catalyst, the organic molecule can be adsorbed on both the internal and outer surfaces of the catalyst [
51]. In this case, the steric hindrance can be ignored, and the organic contaminants are easy to diffuse inside the zeolite framework (
Fig. 3). For instance, it has been reported that low molecular weight (relatively small molecular size) organic substrates (
e.g., ethanol, 1, 1-dimethylhydrazine) in conventional heterogeneous Fe-ZSM5/H
2O
2 catalysis were oxidized and mineralized faster compared with homogeneous catalysis [
85]. This may be attributed to that the molecular size of these organic compounds is smaller than the pore opening size of ZSM-5 (5.1 × 5.5 Å, 5.3 × 5.6 Å), which made the adsorption of organic compounds onto the internal surface of zeolite. This enhanced the interaction between the organic substrates and the
•OH generated from the Fe-containing catalytic active sites on the zeolite surface. As for organic compounds of high molecular weight (relatively high molecular size, such as lignin), the mineralization degree was lower in such conventional heterogeneous Fe-ZSM-5/H
2O
2 Fenton-like system. Because the pore-opening sizes of zeolites limited the adsorption and diffusion of the high molecular weight organic compounds, thereby causing excessive spacing between the active sites and adsorbed organic compounds [
50,
86]. To improve the oxidation or mineralization of large molecules, the specific surface area accessible by large molecules could be increased and the distance between the adsorbed large molecules and the metal sites could be reduced. Sashkina
et al. prepared hierarchical zeolite Fe-ZSM-5, which had additional meso–/macro- porosity that notably reduced the non-targeted oxygen evolution from H
2O
2 and increased the oxidation of large organic molecules by
•OH [
87]. According to Zhou
et al., hierarchically porous Cu(I)-ZSM-5 was used in cyclohexane oxidation [
71], which could provide the fast diffusion pathway for reactant/product molecules and made framework copper sites (Cu
+/Cu
2+) highly dispersed. It gave conversion rates of as high as 28% and selectivity of cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol of above 93%. Besides, the pore-opening size of the zeolite was similar to the diameter of the pollutant molecule, which contributes positively to the adsorption [
50]. According to close-fit theory, tightly fitting pores may cause strong interactions between organic contaminants and zeolite-based catalysts [
88]. For example, Yang
et al. deposited Fe
2O
3 particles on zeolite Y, mordenite and ZSM-5, and used these zeolite-based Fenton catalysts to remove phenol. The pure zeolite Y, mordenite, and ZSM-5 respectively could achieve about 40%, 10% and 80% of phenol removal because of the different adsorption ability of the zeolites. ZSM-5 performed the best, because of the similar sizes of phenol and the pore-opening size of ZSM-5 [
89]. Second, the surface hydrophobicity of zeolite could prevent water clusters from blocking the pores, which could supply more pores and higher surface areas for organic compounds diffusion and adsorption [
88,
90]. The type and the pore space of zeolite could also have an impact on hydrophobicity and mass transportation. For example, Yang
et al. found that ZSM-5 had better adsorption of phenol due to a relatively more hydrophobic surface compared to zeolite Y and mordenite [
89]. That was because the smaller restricted pore space of ZSM-5 inhibited the interactions of water molecules.