Hierarchically Porous Zirconia Monolith Fabricated from Bacterial Cellulose and Preceramic Polymer

Bo-Xing Zhang; Yubei Zhang; Zhenhua Luo; Weijian Han; Wenfeng Qiu; Tong Zhao

doi:10.1021/acsomega.8b00098

Hierarchically Porous Zirconia Monolith Fabricated from Bacterial Cellulose and Preceramic Polymer

ACS Omega. 2018 Apr 30;3(4):4688-4694. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.8b00098.

Authors

Bo-Xing Zhang¹, Yubei Zhang², Zhenhua Luo², Weijian Han², Wenfeng Qiu¹, Tong Zhao²

Affiliations

¹ South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology (AISMST), South China University of Technology (SCUT), 381 Wushan Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou 510640, China.
² Laboratory of Advanced Polymer Materials, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhongguancun North First Street 2, Beijing 100190, China.

Abstract

A hierarchically porous zirconia (ZrO₂) monolith was successfully fabricated by using bacterial cellulose (BC) as a biotemplate and preceramic polymer as a zirconium resource, via freeze-drying and two-step calcination process. Images of scanning electron microscopy showed that the ZrO₂ monolith well-replicated a three-dimensional reticulated structure of pristine BC and possessed good morphology stability till 1100 °C in air. Results of N₂ adsorption/desorption and mercury porosimetry analysis revealed the hierarchically porous structure and large specific area (9.7 m²·g^-1) of the ZrO₂ monolith, respectively. Patterns of X-ray powder diffraction indicated that the monoclinic phase and tetragonal phase coexisted in the ZrO₂ monolith with the former as the main phase. In addition, the ZrO₂ monolith possessed low bulk density (0.13 g·cm^-3) and good mechanical strength. These properties suggest that the as-prepared ZrO₂ monolith has a great potential to serve as an ideal catalyst or catalyst support.