Silica fume (SF) is a kind of solid waste that produced in the process of industrial silicon smelting. The disposal of SF for environmental problem is of great urgency. Here, a facile and novel one-step approach of high silica microporous materials SSZ-13 (SF-SSZ-13) were hydrothermally synthesized using silica fume (SF) as silica source. This method requires significantly shorter reaction times (48 h) compared to conventional SSZ-13. The as-synthesized SF-SSZ-13 exhibited high purity structure, popcorn-like morphology, and a large BET surface area of 545.74 m(2) g(-1). Additionally, on the basis of controlled growth under different hydrothermal times, the formation mechanism of the SF-SSZ-13 outlined for further extension to other materials. The results on time-and energy-efficient of SF-based preparation of SSZ-13 pave the way for the reducing the cost of production of raw materials and decreasing environment load of solid waste, and also extend the application of silica fume. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.