Papers by Keyword: Super Critical Drying

Abstract: Aerogels are sol-gel derived mesoporous materials with low apparent density and large specific surface areas. The mechanical property evaluation of pulsed electric current sintered (PECS) alumina and its composite aerogels with nanosized metallic dispersions is an area of interest. In the present work alumina, alumina-copper, alumina-nickel, alumina-cobalt and alumina-tungsten aerogels have been synthesized by super critical drying of respective the sols. The samples were pre-calcined under controlled sintering conditions and pulsed electric current sintered at two different temperatures: (1) at a lower sintering temperature with short residence time (1250°C for 5min) and (2) at a high temperature with prolonged soaking time (1450°C for 30 min) and their mechanical properties were evaluated.

Abstract: We have prepared titania aerogel (=AG) embedded by NiB nano-clusters by sol-gel method, immersion of the prepared wet gel into the NiB dispersed solution, and the subsequent super critical drying (=SCD). The AG was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), a transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and a fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer (FT-IR). XRD and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) patterns assured the formation of TiO2 anatase phase. TEM observation reveled the composition of TiO2 crystallites with about 4 nm in size. Catalyst performance for the ground sample was confirmed by chemical reaction of oxidation of benzene at low temperature, and the difference in catalyst performance between TiO2 AGs with and without the embedded NiB nano-clusters has been examined.