Synthesis and characterization of zirconia-grafted SBA-15 nanocomposites

The preparation of highly ordered mesoporous zirconia is of special interest when targeting applications in catalysis. Nevertheless, most of the previously reported attempts led to materials with a low hydrothermal stability. Herein, we accordingly report about the benefit of using mesoporous silica as a host support in which accessible zirconia crystallites are stabilized on the surface. The zirconia surface coverage could be tuned and optimized by playing on the most sensitive synthesis parameters, namely the quantity of zirconia, the calcination temperature and the pore diameter of the host support. The acid properties of the so-obtained materials were determined, showing a remarkable linear relationship between the amount of introduced zirconia and the number of acid sites, which evidenced a high accessibility of the acid sites in the nano-composite, due to a homogeneous dispersion of the zirconia phase in the pores of the silica host support.