The disposal of powdery silica fume waste has become an urgent environmental problem, the synthesis of zeolitic materials using silica fume is a commendable remedy to this crisis. In this study, a cost-effective and facile onestep strategy was proposed for the first time for hydrothermal synthesis of ZSM-5 zeolite using silica fume waste with the aid of inexpensive metakaolin in the absence of organic templates. This method allowed the total transformation of silica fume into ZSM-5 which exhibited similar characteristics to those obtained from conventional chemical reagents. The as-synthesized ZSM-5 under the optimized condition was used to prepare Ni, Cu and Zn/ZSM-5 catalysts by means of ion exchange and calcination treatments for NO,, removal by NH3-SCR, and they exhibited high NO conversion of 92, 100, and 95%, respectively. This study would be a promising candidate for cost-effective and environment friendly synthesis of zeolite using silica fume waste in large scale. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.