The zeolite did not show signs of degradation from either the physical modification with zinc or contact with the copper sulfate solution. This is supported by the outcomes of the XRD tests, showing crystalline structure stability across treatments despite minor detectable differences in peak intensities and Supplementary Materials Fig. . In other words, the metal loading did not negatively affect the unmodified area of ZSM-5. As such, a trade-off is clear, since the partial gelled zinc reinforcement of the zeolite surface reduced access to zeolite reactive pores on the reinforced part and hence minimised the adsorption capacity of the said surface. Nevertheless, the zinc reactivity on the reinforced surface counterbalanced that and paid off by forcing extra cationic copper to electronically convert to Cu(s) and deposit on the zinc substrate.