Study Of Preparation And Characterization Of Zirconia Aerogel By Heating Of Alcohol-Water Solution

Aerogels are extremely porous, low-density materials, consisting of inorganic oxides such as silica, alumina, zirconia, or a mixture of these oxides. Meanwhile, in recent years, zirconia has been studied extensively due to its superior physicochemical properties. Especially in catalytic fields, zirconia is an important support material for catalysis, due to its acid-base properties, and also because it is chemically more stable than the classic materials such as γ-alumina and silica.Considering its potential in catalytic applications, it is meaningful in theory and practice to prepare zirconia aerogel with higher surface area and higher structure stability.In this thesis, the zirconia aerogel was prepared by heating inorganic salt-alcohol-water solution followed by supercritical fluid drying method. The effects of the processing parameters on the texture, structure of the zirconia aerogel were investigated. The processing parameters include different precursor species, preparation temperature, ageing time, concentration of inorganic salt and alcohol/water volume ratio of the mixed solution. The optimized zirconia aerogel was calcinated at different temperature.The methods of N₂ adsorption/desorption, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to investigate the...