Zeolites were synthesized from sodium metasilicate, aluminium oxide, sodium hydroxide and distilled water using hydrothermal method. Response Surface method called Box-Behnken was used to design the number of experiments considering three factors affecting the synthesis [(i) Crystallization time (A), (ii) crystallization temperature (B) and (iii) ageing time (C)]. The X-ray diffraction XRD pattern peak of zeolite Y are quite consistent with the reference samples and sample Y6had the highest percentage crystallinity of 75.03% at crystallization time of 7 h, temperature of 95 degrees C and an ageing time of 24 h. The scanning electron micrograph (SEM) for zeolite Y showed hexagonal crystal morphology. Sample Y6 has a surface area of 301.5 m(2)/g, micropore area of 345.4 m(2)/g and micropore volume of 0.1227 cm(3)/g. The ion exchange isotherm for Ca2+-Na+-Y systems shows that although the entering cation was initially preferred, the incoming ion remains in solution not displacing the sodium ion in the zeolites which is in line with literature, while ion exchange isothermfor NH4+-Na+-Y system shows unusual shape and the curves showed where the solution phase varies in composition with its equivalence in the zeolite phase. (C) 2016 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.