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Facile Preparation of Ultrafine Aluminum Hydroxide Particles with or without Mesoporous MCM-41 in Ambient Environments
Published on: May 11, 2017
Molten B2O3 unlocks an alumina support effect in selective methane oxidation
Ran Yan1, Cancan Zhang1, Siyu Liu1
1State Key Laboratory for Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), and College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China. shuaiwang@xmu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Boron oxide catalysts are often considered support-insensitive under nominally full-coverage conditions. Here we show that γ-Al2O3 still regulates methane oxidation on B2O3/γ-Al2O3 at surface-saturating B2O3 loading. Engineering alumina basicity yields nearly an order-of-magnitude rate variation while preserving the intrinsic resistance to deep oxidation. Combined in situ spectroscopy and site titration indicate that B2O3 melts under reaction conditions and dynamically exposes basic Al-OH functionality, which underlies the observed promotion. These reaction-driven interfacial dynamics offer a new design handle for tuning nonmetallic oxidation catalysis even under "full-coverage" conditions.
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