Tailored synthesis of organized mesoporous aluminas prepared by non-ionic surfactant templating using a Box-Wilson CCF design

Organized mesoporous aluminas (OMA) are materials that present interesting properties as catalytic supports in reactions in which bulky molecules are involved. In this work, a number of OMA were prepared using a non-ionic structure directing agent (a tri-block co-polymer). The study of the quantitative influence of some OMA synthesis conditions (water aluminium ratio (H2O:Al), ageing temperature (Tag), and calcination heating rate (rcal)) on the resulting OMA textural properties (specific surface area (SBET), pore volume (Vp) and average pore diameter (APD)) was carried out using a Box-Wilson Central Composite Design Face Centred (CCF, α:±1). The models obtained provided a satisfactory adjustment of the experimental data. H2O:Al was found to be the most 1 Present address: Instituto de Carboquímica. CSIC. Miguel Luesma 4, 50018 Zaragoza (Spain) * Corresponding authors: (I.S.) Tel. +34976733977; Fax: +34 976733318; e-mail address: [email protected] (M.M.) Tel. +44(0)2075941633; Fax: +44(0)2075945638; e-mail address: [email protected] 2 influencing model term. The influence of Tag and rcal interactions on SBET and Vp was found to be significant. Representative OMA with well differentiated pore size distributions were characterized by N2 adsorption, XRD and TEM.