A dielectric-barrier discharge (DBD) plasma technique has been successfully applied for template removal from ZSM-5 zeolite. The rate for template removal using DBD is about eight times higher than that using the conventional thermal calcination. During the template removal using DBD, the highest temperature of the sample is about 125 degrees C. As such, the thermal effect on the sample during the DBD template removal is not significant. This made the structure changes of ZSM-5 zeolite during the template removal less dramatic than that using thermal calcination.