Abstract

Synthesis of silica sulphated zirconia binary oxide with improved acidic and textural properties

Author(s): Basudeb Chakraborty, Poulami Dutta, Sandip Kumar Nandi

Solid acid catalyst material has many advantages over homogeneous acid catalysts due to easy separation, reusability and environmental friendliness. The objective of this work is to synthesize non-ionic surfactant-templated, ordered mesoporous silica sulphated zirconia binary oxide with improved acidic and textural properties[1,2].Attempts have beenmade tomake synthesis methodologymore economical by using cheaper rawmaterials like sodium silicate and zirconium oxy-chloride as source of silica and zirconia respectively[29].Aseries of mesoporous SSZ materials were prepared using tri-block co-polymers as template by changing various parameters like the precursors used, the Si:Zr ratio, pH of the gel and the effect of the ageing time. The products were characterized by XRD, TEM, SEM, TPD, FTIR, nitrogen adsorption at liquid nitrogen temperature and by chemical analysis. Acidic properties of selected samples were determined by ammonia TPD technique. The catalytic activity of the prepared SSZ catalysts was evaluated for the synthesis of coumarone by Pechmann Reaction.