Nanocast mesoporous mixed metal oxides for catalytic applications

Since the initial discovery of ordered mesoporous silica in early 1990s, considerable innovations were achieved regarding their synthesis, characterization and applications. One of the best outcomes of these intense research efforts is the development of a solid templating method called “nanocasting”, which is based on using mesoporous silica (or carbon) as a rigid template. This solid-to-solid replication method opened the pathway for synthesizing high surface area non-silica mesostructured materials that are challenging to obtain through conventional self-assembly processes which are based on amphiphilic soft structure-directing agents. In particular, the replicated metal oxide mesostructures obtained by this method were found to be highly versatile for a wide range of applications, especially in catalysis, owing to their large specific surface area. Furthermore, the nanocasting method is particularly suited for the synthesis of mixed metal compositions, favored by the possible confinement of mixed precursors in the nanopores of the template. In this account, we discuss some of the recent developments regarding the synthesis of nanocast mixed metal oxides and their perspectives of catalytic applications. It is here the choice of the authors to place emphasis on a few representative examples of compositions (e.g., non-noble metal-based catalysts, perovskites) and catalytic reactions (e.g., hydrogen production, gas-phase oxidation).     

介孔氮化碳材料合成的研究进展

石墨相氮化碳(g-C₃N₄)是一种新型的无金属材料,因其具有众多特殊的理化性质,在多相催化、光催化、燃料电池和气体储存等领域显示出了潜在的应用前景。与直接热聚合法制得的块状g-C₃N₄相比,介孔g-C₃N₄拥有高比表面和丰富的介孔孔道,能暴露更多的表面活性位,继而提升其在催化反应等应用方面的性能。热聚合法是合成g-C₃N₄的最为便利的方法。其中,热聚合法合成介孔g-C₃N₄的工艺分为硬模板法、软模板法和无模板法。本文对近十年来国内外这三种合成工艺的研究进展进行了综述。特别是针对硬模板法,从前驱体合成机理、产品理化性质等多角度评述了硬模板法合成介孔g-C₃N₄的关键问题。此外,针对新型的软模板法和无模板法进行了介绍,并与硬模板法进行了细致的对比和讨论。最后,对介孔g-C₃N₄合成工艺的未来发展趋势进行了展望。     

Facile method to prepare lotus-leaf-like super-hydrophobic poly(vinyl chloride) film

A simple new approach was developed to obtain a super-hydrophobic PVC film from a natural lotus leaf using the nanocasting method. SEM shows that compared with a common smooth PVC film, a lotus-leaf-like surface structure was clearly observed on the super-hydrophobic PVC film. The water contact angle and rolling-off angle on the as-prepared lotus-leaf-like PVC film were 157 ± 1.8° and 3 ± 0.6°, respectively. The samples were kept at temperatures between 5 and 40 °C in the ambient atmosphere for 2 months, and no decrease in water contact angle was observed, nor was contamination observed.     

孔结构对纳米浇注的中孔钙钛矿上甲醇氧化反应动力学的影响

限制工业有毒气体(如挥发性有机化合物)的排放是当今社会主要的挑战之一.因此,迫切需要开发出消除污染物、且不造成二次污染的环境友好技术.其中热燃烧技术比较有效,但通常该过程会采用贵金属催化剂以实现低温高活性.由于贵金属催化剂的成本较高,不利于工业应用,因此,人们一直致力于研究和开发新型材料以替代贵金属催化剂.研究发现,在许多部分氧化或完全氧化反应(特别是烃类或挥发性有机物的氧化反应)中,钙钛矿类复合金属氧化物(ABO3)具有与贵金属类似的催化性能.但是该材料的制各需在高温(＞ 700℃)条件下进行,使得其比表面积(＜30 m2/g)很低,因而限制了其应用.可见,欲使该材料在工业上得到广泛应用,必须在制备技术上实现很大的突破,即制得高比表面积的钙钛矿类材料.已有人通过在200℃下焙烧成功地制备了比表面积为1 00 m2/g的钙钛矿氧化物,但继续提高焙烧温度,所制样品的比表面积下降.在过去20年中,中孔氧化硅及随后众多中孔材料的成功制备,使得合成具有极高比表面积的非硅基材料(如碳,金属氧化物,和碳化物等)成为可能.在这些材料的制备方法中,纳米浇铸法因其特别适用于制备具有高比表面积的单金属或单金属氧化物而备受青睐.采用纳米浇铸法已经成功制得一系列材料,并用于很多催化反应中.但文献报道大多只局限于温度、催化剂组成或比表面积对其活性的影响.为了能将这些材料成功用于工业应用,需要对其表面反应机理和相关反应动力学进行深入的研究.最近,本课题组采用纳米浇铸法制备了高比表面积的中孔钙钛矿类氧化物,并考察了它们的催化性能.结果表明,在各种气相反应中,所制纳米浇注的钙钛矿类氧化物具有比相应体相氧化物更高的催化效率.基于此,本文以在不同温度老化的SBA-15为硬模板,采用纳米浇铸法制备高比表面积的LaMnO3材料,运用X-射线衍射、N2吸附-脱附、透射电镜、程序升温还原和O2-程序升温脱附等方法分析所制材料的晶相、织构、表面和氧化还原等性质,考察了其孔结构参数对其催化甲醇完全氧化反应性能和动力学的影响,以深入理解该类材料的催化性能.结果表明,以35,100,140℃老化制得的SBA-15为模板剂,成功地制得了La在A位,Mn在B位的一系列LaMnO3材料,它们具有可调控的比表面积(80-190 m2/g);同时,材料的比表面积与所用硬模板剂的老化温度存在很好的关联,且比表面积最大的样品具有最高的催化活性.测量了各催化剂在不同空速(19500-78200 h-1)条件下甲醇氧化反应结果,从而得到了各催化剂的速率常数,发现它们随着催化剂的比表面积而变化.再结合阿伦尼乌斯方程,采用线性回归法测得了所制备的三个催化剂上该方程的指前因子和表观活化能;发现在所考察的反应条件下,所有催化剂上反应的表观活化能较低,且保持不变.另外,指前因子与催化剂比表面积之间存在线性关系,表明尽管各催化剂的比表面积不同,但单位比表面积的甲醇氧化的比活性是相同的.由于在制备过程中很难除去残余的Si物种,因此未来工作中我们将进一步考察残余物种对纳米浇注的钙钛矿类材料性质的影响.     

Synthesis of Mesostructured Iron Oxides with Potential As(V) Adsorption Application

Mesostructured iron oxides(MIOs) were nanocasted from a plugged hexagonal templated silica(PHTS) with a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller(BET) surface area of 694 m²/g. Results of X-ray diffraction(XRD), transmission electron microscopy(TEM) and N₂ adsorption-desorption suggest that the nanocasted MIOs are synthetic hematite(α-Fe₂O₃) with a wormhole-like mesoporous network. As(V) adsorption test shows that the selected MIO—MIO-500(calcinated at 500℃) with a BET surface area of 82 m²/g has a maximum adsorption capacity of 5.39 mg/g for As(V), which is 2.5 times as large as that of natural hematite adsorbent. The study suggests that MIOs could be potentially used as the adsorbent of As(V) in wastewater.     

Calcination-temperature-dependent gas-sensing properties of mesoporous α-Fe2O3 nanowires as ethanol sensors

The mesoporous α-Fe₂O₃ nanowires (NWs) were successfully synthesized by changing the calcination temperature from 550 to 750 °C (marked NWs-550, NWs-650 and NWs-750) via using SBA-15 silica as the hard templates with the nanocasting method. The characterization results indicated that the bandgap of the as-prepared samples hardly changed and the high BET surface areas changed a little with the calcination temperature from 550 to 750 °C. Mesoporous α-Fe₂O₃ NWs had been found to possess the remarkable gas-sensing performance to ethanol gas. The gas-sensing behavior indicated that α-Fe₂O₃ NWs-650 exhibited the higher response than that of α-Fe₂O₃ NWs-550 and α-Fe₂O₃ NWs-750. The calcination-temperature-dependent gas-sensing properties were mainly attributed to the competition of surface defects and body defects by the crystallization temperature. The lower calcination temperature could create more surface defects to improve the gas-sensing response, while the higher temperature would reduce the body defect and make the charge carriers transport easily. As the result, the suitable calcination temperature was desired to optimize the defects of nanostructures to improve the gas sensitivity.     

Synthesis of morphology-controllable mesoporous Co3O4 and CeO2

Recently, extensive works have been devoted to the morphology control of mesoporous materials with respect to their use in various applications. In this paper, we used two kinds of mesoporous silica, SBA-15 rods and spheres as hard templates to synthesize morphology-controllable mesoporous metal oxides. By carefully controlling the loading of metal precursors in the mesopores of the hard template, mesoporous Co₃O₄ and CeO₂ with different morphologies, such as micrometer-sized rod, hollow sphere, saucer-like sphere, and solid sphere were conveniently obtained. The structural properties of these materials were characterized by XRD, BET, SEM and TEM. In addition, it is found that the differences observed in the textural properties of the two mesoporous metal oxides nanocasted from the same template can be attributed to the properties of metal precursors and the interaction between metal oxide and SiO₂. Thus-obtained mesoporous metal oxides with such special morphologies may have a potential application in the field of environmental catalytic oxidation.     

Synthesis of Ordered Cubic Periodic Mesoporous Silica with High Hydrothermal Stability

1 Introduction Since its first discovery in 1992[1,2], ordered mesoporous silica material with large pore size, high surface area, and high pore volume has attracted great attention for the potentially wide application