Characterizations of sol-gel derived mesoporous Silica or Alumina catalysts for microchannel reactor applications
EMSL Project ID
2085
Abstract
The objective of this work is to synthesize nanocrystallite mesoporous alumina and silica using sol-gel preparations that can be directly dip-coated on metal substrates for microchannel reactor applications. The synthesis process involves the use of organic surfactant precursor with Al or Si precursor (typically metal alkoxide) self-assembled into liquid crystal mesophases. Upon subsequent calcinations, the surfactant was burned, resulting in SiO2 or Al2O3 shells conform to the pores that was created by the surfactant micelles. The pore size and surface area of the materials made can be tailored precisely by changing the synthesizing conditions. Our primary goal is to synthesize large pore supports with narrow pore size distributions, eliminating micropores that leads to coking and pore plugging during reaction. This preparation has obvious advantages over the conventional wash coating technique since the as prepare sol can be directly gelled onto the engineered substrate, reducing the cost of catalyst fabrication. SEM provides a quick and efficient way to examine the materials without special specimen preparations. With this in mind, we intended to study the microstructure of the SiO2 or Al2O3 coatings under SEM and to correlate this to their performance in the microchannel reactor. Since SEM is a non-destructive methods, we are able to use the same specimen that have been analyzed for reactor testing. Information such as coating thickness, surface cracks formations, and coating homogeneity can be obtained.
Project Details
Project type
Exploratory Research
Start Date
2000-11-01
End Date
2002-12-13
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator