Synthesis and Characterization of Magnesium Oxide Supported Catalysts with Micro-Meso Pore Structure

Abstract

Magnesium oxide with a wide band gap insulator has found wide applications in catalyst, toxic waste remediation, refractory material, paint, superconductor products [1, 2] and so on. Nanostructured magnesium oxides with controlled architectures are most commonly obtained by thermal decomposition of various magnesium compounds such as hydroxide, oxalate, carbonate, nitrate, etc. The reactivity of the solid substances is known to depend on their chemical and thermal prehistory [3, 4]. Studies of magnesium oxide through the decomposition routes of various compounds have been reported that the product of decomposition of magnesium hydroxyl carbonates is active in catalysis. However, a new method for obtaining novel nanostructured magnesium oxide architectures for heterogeneous catalysis is still challenging because bottom-up processes make rendering controlled and reproducible use of individual nanostructure difficult. In this work, porous magnesium oxide architectures with cube morphology were prepared from supercritical CO2/ethanol solution via chemical reaction of soluble precursors and subsequent thermal decomposition. The effects of different reaction temperatures on the morphologies and crystal phases of the final magnesium oxide products were investigated.