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• Sachse, A
• Galarneau, A
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Materials 2012, 5(2), 336-349; doi:10.3390/ma5020336

Article

Challenges and Strategies in the Synthesis of Mesoporous Alumina Powders and Hierarchical Alumina Monoliths

Sarah Hartmann, Alexander Sachse and Anne Galarneau*

Institut Charles Gerhardt Montpellier, UMR 5253 CNRS/UM2/ENSCM/UM1, ENSCM 8 Rue de l’Ecole Normale, 34296 Montpellier Cedex 5, France

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 14 December 2011; in revised form: 13 February 2012 / Accepted: 13 February 2012 / Published: 20 February 2012

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Porous Inorganic Materials)

Download PDF Full-Text [1182 KB, uploaded 20 February 2012 08:42 CET]

Abstract: A new rapid, very simple and one-step sol-gel strategy for the large-scale preparation of highly porous γ-Al₂O₃ is presented. The resulting mesoporous alumina materials feature high surface areas (400 m² g⁻¹), large pore volumes (0.8 mL g⁻¹) and the γ-Al₂O₃ phase is obtained at low temperature (500 °C). The main advantages and drawbacks of different preparations of mesoporous alumina materials exhibiting high specific surface areas and large pore volumes such as surfactant-nanostructured alumina, sol-gel methods and hierarchically macro-/mesoporous alumina monoliths have been analyzed and compared. The most reproducible synthesis of mesoporous alumina are given. Evaporation-Induced Self-Assembly (EISA) is the sole method to lead to nanostructured mesoporous alumina by direct templating, but it is a difficult method to scale-up. Alumina featuring macro- and mesoporosity in monolithic shape is a very promising material for in flow applications; an optimized synthesis is described.

Keywords: mesoporous alumina; high surface area alumina; alumina monolith; hierarchical porosity; nanostructured alumina; catalyst support

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