Acoustic cavitation - An efficient energetic tool to synthesize nanosized CuO-ZrO2 catalysts with a mesoporous distribution

Manickam Sivakumar, Aharon Gedanken, Ziyi Zhong, Luwei Chen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

A CuO-ZrO2 catalyst of nanometer size was prepared using a simple precipitation technique, assisted by cavitation, and induced by an environmentally friendly ultrasonic technique. BET surface areas of 349.2 m 2 g-1 for the as-prepared catalyst and 72.4 m2 g-1 for the catalyst calcined in air at 500°C were obtained when the precursors were subjected to 70% ultrasonic intensity for 4 h. On the other hand, by following a conventional precipitation method using similar precursors, a surface area of 72 m2 g-1 was obtained when the precursors were heated to only 80°C for 20 h. More importantly, only the application of ultrasound lead to the formation of a mesoporous structure. To confirm the ultrasonic cavitational effect in this process, the affect of the ultrasonic intensity in increasing the surface area, as well as in generating the mesopores, was also investigated. Furthermore, from studies of the catalytic activity for decomposing N2O, it has been observed that the catalyst obtained with 70% ultrasonic intensity clearly exhibits an increased activity compared to the catalyst prepared using 20% ultrasonic intensity. These results clearly indicate that ultrasound-induced cavitation is a new and rapid method for the preparation of supported catalysts. The products were characterized by nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms, TGA, XRD, TEM, EDAX, XPS and XRF measurements.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)102-107
Number of pages6
JournalNew Journal of Chemistry
Volume30
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2006

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