Understanding the Effect of Calcination Process on the Mesoporous MCM-41 Material Morphology

Abstract

The pore structure, which is known to be affected by calcination, is one of the desired features for materials especially when considered to be catalysts. The improvement in the structure occurs after removing all template ions during the calcination process. This study attempts to evaluate the impact of the calcination process on properties of mesoporous MCM-41 (Mobile Composition of Matter 41) obtained via sol-gel method. Characterization of calcined and untreated samples was performed by N2 adsorption-desorption, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis. The results showed that the calcination process displayed a significant impact on the MCM-41 materials. After calcination, the MCM-41 sample possessed higher surface area and smaller pore diameter, compared to the untreated one. Finally, the calcination acted as an effective pore modulating procedure, thus giving a significant impact on the morphology of the studies of MCM-41. Therefore, the calcination step in MCM-41 material preparation is explained in detail ensuring valuable characterization information to the literature.