Mesoporous structure stability of zirconium-doped mesoporous silica at elevated temperature

In this work, the thermal stability of mesoporous structure of MCM-41 materials with different zirconium contents (Zr-MCM-41) was investigated. The results show that the obtained Zr-MCM-41 materials retain a relatively good long range order of mesopores up to 1000 degrees C. Increasing the calcining temperature to 1050 degrees C, the mesopore openings become anisotropic and a few new pores with dozens of nanometers are formed due to thermal stress effect. After calcination at 1100 degrees C, the mesopores structure of all the samples collapse completely and some tetragonal zirconia can be also detected in the sample with high zirconium content (15 <= Si/Zr <= 40). The synthesized Zr-MCM-41 materials with good thermal stability are expected to be used as the support of catalytic activators under process conditions. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.