Calcination system-induced nanocasting synthesis of uniform Co 3 O 4 nanoparticles with high surface area and enhanced catalytic performance

• Published in: RSC advances Vol. 5; no. 45; pp. 35524 - 35534
• Main Authors: Sun, Xiaohong, You, Rui, Hu, Xudong, Mo, Junbin, Xiong, Rui, Ji, Huiming, Li, Xiaolei, Cai, Shu, Zheng, Chunming, Meng, Ming
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• ISSN: 2046-2069; 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/C5RA03271G

Co 3 O 4 catalytic materials with varying mesoporous periodicity and crystallinity have been successfully synthesized via a calcination system-induced nanocasting method. N-Co 3 O 4 with uniform nanoscale morphology, high specific surface area, and large pore size distribution was obtained in an open system as a calcination process, while M-Co 3 O 4 with long-range mesoporous periodicity and high crystallinity was synthesized using a closed system as the calcination condition. The control of the mesostructure and morphology was carried out by tuning the diffusion rate of the cobalt precursor in the template channel resulting from the different escape rates of the decomposed byproducts via the varied calcination containers. The CO oxidation testing indicated that N-Co 3 O 4 exhibited better catalytic performance than that of M-Co 3 O 4 . The difference in activity could be attributed to the uniform nanoscale structure of N-Co 3 O 4 , which mesoporous M-Co 3 O 4 lacked. N-Co 3 O 4 had a better performance for CO oxidation due to the uniform nanoparticle structure, higher specific surface area, larger pore size distribution, abundant active oxygen species and Co 3+ cationic species on the surface, which accelerated the adsorption and diffusion of reactant molecules and finally improved the reaction activity of N-Co 3 O 4 . The resulting catalytic behaviors lead to a better understanding of designing and using such metal oxides for a number of catalytic applications.