Date of Completion

10-10-2014

Embargo Period

10-9-2015

Keywords

Mesoporous materials, UCT materials, manganese oxide, heteregeneous catalysis

Major Advisor

Steven L. Suib

Associate Advisor

Alfredo Angeles-Boza

Associate Advisor

James F. Rusling

Associate Advisor

Pamir S. Alpay

Associate Advisor

Edward J. Neth

Field of Study

Chemistry

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Open Access

Open Access

Abstract

There are 4 chapters in this thesis. Chapter 1 provides background information (synthesis, applications, and limitations) about mesoporous materials. Chapter 2 describes the developed inverse micelle method for the synthesis of mesoporous materials and illustrates the applicability of the method. Chapter 3 discusses mesoporous solid acids prepared by inverse micelle method and their catalytic activity. Chapter 4 suggests a mild transformation of mesoporous manganese oxides into various other crystal structures under mild acidic conditions.

Thermally stable, crystalline wall, thermally controlled monomodal pore size mesoporous materials are discussed in the thesis. Generation of such materials involves use of inverse micelles, elimination of solvent effects, minimization the effect of water content, and controlling the condensation of inorganic framework by NOx decomposition. Nano-size particles are formed in inverse micelles and are randomly packed to a mesoporous structure. The mesopores are created by interconnected intra-particle voids, thus can be tuned from 1.2 nm to 25 nm by controlling the nano-particle size. Such phenomena allow preparation of multiple phases of the same metal and syntheses of materials having compositions throughout much of the periodic table. The method has been demonstrated to work for numerous transition metal oxides like Ti, Zr, Hf, Nb, Ta, Cr, W, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Zr,; nonmetals like Al, Si, Sn, lanthanides (La, Ce, Sm. Gd), and mixed metals (YSZ, Alumina Silicate etc). Thermal stabilities can be as high as 800oC. The mesopores are monomodal in distribution and allow unique adsorptive and catalytic properties. Such materials have unique properties that will allow use in adsorption, catalysis, sensors, batteries, optoelectronics, magnetic, and other areas.

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