Study of Pseudoboehmite Synthesis by Sol-Gel Process

A pseudoboehmite was obtained by sol-gel synthesis using aluminum nitrate as precursor. It was used a 2n full factorial design for studying the effect of the temperature of synthesis, the concentration of ammonium hydroxide, and the radiation dose in the product of sol-gel synthesis. The product of the synthesis was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction of the product (after firing the pseudoboehmite at different temperatures), and it was also analyzed the temperature of endothermic and exothermic transformations using the thermo gravimetric analysis (TG) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The X-ray diffraction data show that α-alumina was obtained at 1100o C.