Abstract
Metal oxides with high porosity usually exhibit better performance in many applications, as compared with the corresponding bulk materials. Template-assisted method is generally employed to prepare porous metal oxides. However, the template-assisted method is commonly operated in wet conditions, which requires solvents, soluble metal oxide precursors, and a long time for drying. To overwhelm those drawbacks of the wet procedure, a mechanochemical nanocasting method is developed in the current work. Inspired by solid-state synthesis, this strategy proceeds without solvents, and the ball milling process can enable pores replicated in a shorter time (60 min). By this method, a series of highly porous metal oxides were obtained, with several cases approaching the corresponding surface area records (e.g., ZrO2, 293 m2 g-1 Fe2O3, 163 m2 g-1 CeO2, 211 m2 g-1 CuOx-CeOy catalyst, 237 m2 g-1 CuOx-CoOy-CeOz catalyst, 203 m2 g-1). Abundant nanopores with clear lattice fringes in metal oxide products were witnessed by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) in high angle annular dark field (HAADF). By combination of mechanochemical synthesis and nanocasting, current technology provides a general and simple pathway to porous metal oxides.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2924-2929 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Chemistry of Materials |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 8 2018 |
Funding
P.F.Z. and S.D. were supported by the Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. W.M.X. and N.Z. thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21062013 and 21663016) and the China Scholarship Council. The electron microscopy (S.Z.Y.) was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering Division and through a user proposal at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility. P.F.Z. acknowledges Shanghai Pujiang Program (Grant No. 17PJ1403500), Thousand Talent Program, and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21776174) for the partial support.