Solution combustion synthesis of Mo-Fe/MgO : influence of the fuel composition on the production of doped catalyst nanopowder

Abstract

Among the techniques for producing oxide catalysts, the solution combustion synthesis (SCS) has been widely used to produce high-quality nanostructured powders at lowcost. Through SCS, due to the high exothermic energy liberated by the reaction between the transition metal nitrate and the fuel, it is possible to homogeneously incorporate dopant ions into the catalyst. Besides, SCS allows the production of nanopowders with sizes in the decimal scale, which is extremely important for powdered catalysts. The smaller the particle is, the larger the surface area is. Based on these possibilities, the aim of this work is to produce Fe- Mo/MgO nanopowders by SCS. The influence of concentration and composition of the fuels glycine and polyethylene glycol (PEG) on the final product were investigated. The morphology and the physicochemical properties were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), electron microscopy (SEM), granulometry and surface area analysis. The results indicated high crystallinity for the samples produced with PEG and a wide variation on the nanoparticles sizes depending on the fuel properties.