Al2O3 nanofibers prepared from aluminum Di(sec-butoxide)acetoacetic ester chelate exhibits high surface area and acidity
[Display omitted] •Electrospun alumina nanofibers exhibit high acidity.•The nature of the acid sites in alumina nanofibers is assessed with IR-Pyridine.•Total acidity and acid sites distribution is assessed with NH3-TPD.•Desorption kinetics of adsorbed ammonia (NH3) using density-functional theory (...
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Published in | Journal of catalysis Vol. 405; pp. 520 - 533 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Elsevier Inc
01.01.2022
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | [Display omitted]
•Electrospun alumina nanofibers exhibit high acidity.•The nature of the acid sites in alumina nanofibers is assessed with IR-Pyridine.•Total acidity and acid sites distribution is assessed with NH3-TPD.•Desorption kinetics of adsorbed ammonia (NH3) using density-functional theory (DFT) is provided.•A mathematical model using a regression procedure is used to estimate NH3 desorption energy on alumina nanofibers.
Alumina (Al2O3) is a widely used material for catalysis in the chemical industry. Besides a high specific surface area, acid sites on Al2O3 play a crucial role in the chemical transformation of adsorbed molecules, which ultimately react and desorb from the catalyst. This study introduces a synthetic method based on electrospinning to produce Al2O3 nanofibers (ANFs) with acidity and porosity tuned using different aluminum precursor formulations. After electrospinning and heat treatment, the nanofibers form a non-woven network with macropores (∼4 μm). Nanofibers produced from aluminum di(sec-butoxide)acetoacetic ester chelate (ASB) show the highest total acidity of ca. 0.70 µmol/m2 determined with temperature-programmed desorption of ammonia (NH3-TPD) and BET. The nature of the acid site in ASB ANFs is studied in detail with infrared (IR) spectroscopy. Pyridine is used as a molecular probe for the identification of acid sites in ASB. Pyridine showed the presence of Lewis acid sites prominently. Density-functional theory (DFT) is conducted to understand the desorption kinetics of the adsorbed chemical species, such as ammonia (NH3) on crystalline γ-Al2O3. For our analysis, we focused on a mobile approach for chemisorbed and physisorbed NH3. The computational results are compared with NH3-TPD experiments, ultimately utilized to estimate the desorption energy and kinetic desorption parameters. The experiments are found to pair up with our simulation results. We predict that these non-woven structures will find application as a dispersion medium of metallic particles in catalysis. |
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ISSN: | 0021-9517 1090-2694 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.jcat.2021.11.019 |