Fractal approach to the CO oxidation on silica porous materials

We present an approach establishing a relation between the activation energy of heterogeneous catalytic processes and the fractal dimension of a catalyst. The approach is verified by experimental study of the CO oxidation on various porous silica and zeolite NaX. The fractal dimension of a catalyst (D_F) was calculated from the nitrogen adsorption isotherms. Our results indicate that the activation energy increases with increasing the fractal dimension of a catalyst. We show a good correspondence between theoretical and experimental results.