One-pot and general synthesis of crystalline mesoporous metal oxides nanoparticles by protective etching: Potential materials for catalytic applications

A one-pot protective etching process was developed to prepare several mesoporous metal oxides, including CeO₂, Cu₂O and ZnO. Polycrystalline precursor particles, a protective agent with proper combination to precursor and etchant with a matched etching capability are the three preconditions to construct the protective etching system. Compared to previous approaches, the current method has several advantages, which includes compatibility for different metal oxides, one-pot reaction without multi-step procedures, fast synthesis (3 hours) from common metal salts to porous products, a large surface area (up to 200 m² g^-1) and crystalline porous framework. The mesoporous CeO₂ loaded with Pt catalyst shows better activity, higher selectivity, longer life and good thermal stability for CO oxidation compared to the CeO₂-Pt catalyst, which reveals its potential in large scale production of abundant materials for catalytic applications.