Modelling and Optimisation of the Sol-Gel Conditions for Synthesis of Semi-Hexagonal Titania-Based Nano-Catalyst for Esterification Reaction

Design and fabrication of a catalyst with the highest activity can be achieved by optimising synthesis conditions. In this study, sol-gel conditions citric acid concentration, gelling temperature, complex time, calcination temperature were studied for preparation novel semi-hexagonal calcium/titania-zirconia nano-catalyst used in esterification reaction. After around 24 samples at various conditions, their was tested reaction results analysed multi-layer perceptron (MLP) support vector machine (SVM) models. Both models predicted actual data high coefficients determination, indicated that has most influence on prepared Moreover, genetic algorithm (GA) utilised based SVM model, due to its higher generalisation capability prediction. The nano-catalysts under optimum 1.42 ratio, 72 °C, time 2.65 h, 487 °C showed good crystalline structure metal–metal metal–oxygen cation bonding. Finally, fabricated had surface area (276.5 m2/g) 3.5 nm pore diameter almost uniform particle size (80–110 nm) distribution, leading conversion 97.6% reaction, catalytic stability up five times.