Authors: Maria Giorgia Cutrufello Elisabetta Rombi Italo Ferino Danilo Loche Anna Corrias Maria Francesca Casula
Publish Date: 2011/04/08
Volume: 60, Issue: 3, Pages: 324-332
Abstract
Porous nanocomposites made out of nickel dispersed on silica or alumina matrices were prepared as prospective catalysts for the nitroxidation of hydrocarbons in the form of aerogel or xerogel by adopting either a supercritical or a conventional gel drying procedure The structural and textural features of the materials were investigated by Xray diffraction transmission electron microscopy and N2 physisorption and combined to the acid/base and reducibility data as deduced by adsorption microcalorimetry and temperature programmed reduction TPR profiles The aluminabased samples are made out of nanocrystalline nickel aluminate and are mesoporous although the aerogel has larger pore volumes and surface area than the xerogel On the other hand in the silicabased samples nickel oxide nanocrystals are dispersed on amorphous silica the size of the nanocrystals being around 5 nm in the microporous xerogel and 14 nm in the mainly mesoporous aerogel TPR data point out that the aluminabased samples have similar reducibility whereas significant differences were observed in the silicasupported composites the NiO–SiO2 aerogel exhibiting improved reducibility at low temperature The NOcatalyst interaction was monitored by temperature programmed NO reaction coupled to mass spectrometry and preliminary tests on the use of the NiO–SiO2 xerogel and aerogel nanocomposites for the catalytic nitroxidation of 1methylnaphthalene to 1naphthonitrile were obtained in a fixedbed continuousflow reactor The data indicate that the aerogel exhibits larger selectivity than the corresponding xerogel pointing out the importance of tuning the sol–gel parameters in the design of porous composite materials for catalytic applications
Keywords: