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Controlled Synthesis of Alumina in a Spray Flame Aerosol Reactor
ONOCHIE OKONKWO, Sukrant Dhawan, Sanmathi Chavalmane, Pratim Biswas, Washington University in St. Louis
Abstract Number: 324
Working Group: Nanoparticles and Materials Synthesis
Abstract
Alumina has gained importance as a catalyst and catalyst support for industrial processes such as Claus, reforming, methanol synthesis processes and others. Conventionally, alumina supported catalysts are synthesised by wet synthesis methods such as precipitation, co-precipitation, and impregnation. These methods are multi-step, batch processes with significant waste treatment requirement. Flame synthesis, unlike conventional wet synthesis methods, is an easily scalable, continuous one step synthesis method for catalyst manufacture [1]. Studies have shown that the structure of alumina used as catalyst support are not altered by highly dispersed deposited metal active centres[2]. The effectiveness of alumina supported catalyst depends on the phases of alumina present in the catalyst, pore structure and surface area [3, 4]. Unlike alumina synthesised typically by the calcination of aluminium hydroxides and oxyhydroxides, there is a dearth of studies focused on the characterisation of alumina made by flame synthesis technique.
Consequently, this presentation will focus on the characterisation of the crystallinity, pore structure and morphology of alumina synthesised by the spray flame aerosol reactor using x-ray diffraction, N2 – physisorption, and transmission electron microscopy. The precursor, dispersion oxygen and sheath oxygen flow rates are varied to investigate their effects on the properties of flame made alumina. The results will be discussed to demonstrate the controlled synthesis of alumina using the flame aerosol reactor.
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[2] A.J. Santis-Alvarez et al., Applied Catalysis A: General, 469 (2014) 275-283.
[3] D. Zhang et al., Chemical Engineering Journal, 330 (2017) 706-717.
[4] C. Dai et al., Applied Catalysis A: General, 545 (2017) 97-103.