Application of ordered mesoporous materials as model supports to study catalyst preparation by impregnation and drying

The influence of individual steps of the preparation of 20 wt% Ni/SiO 2 catalysts by impregnation and drying using nickel nitrate as precursor salt was unravelled. We found that the drying treatment had little effect on the ultimate dispersion, whereas calcination resulted in poorly dispersed Ni/SiO 2 catalysts. By avoiding the detrimental calcination step highly dispersed catalysts could be obtained. It has been demonstrated that with the use of SBA-15 as a model support TEM, XRD and N 2 -physisorption yielded detailed information on the dispersion of the active phase, or its precursor, and its distribution over the support. Experiments with silica gel confirmed that these findings are also relevant to conventional supports.