A study of novel composite mesoporous zirconia catalyst materials

This paper focuses on the study of mesoporous zirconia and its composite mesoporous catalysis materials. On the basis of the synthesis of mesoporous zirconium oxide with an ordered pore structure through a surfactant templating technique, a new kind of composite mesoporous zirconia catalyst materials such as Pt-Ce/Meso-ZrO₂, and Pd-Y/Meso-ZrO₂, have been synthesized via a post-grafting method. XRD, TEM, EDS, and UV-Vis spectroscopy were adopted for the characterization of the synthesized materials. It was shown that cerium and yttrium could be successfully incorporated into the framework of mesoporous zirconia. The results of H₂-TPR experiment show that, after further loading with the noble metal Pt or Pd, our prepared samples show greater redox activation; the temperatures for catalytic reduction of these mesoporous composite catalysis materials could be greatly decreased. This new catalysis material may be expected to have potential applications in some practical fileds, including automobile waste gas treatment.