One-pot synthesis method of SiO2-La2O2CO3 and SiO2-La2O3 systems using metallic lanthanum as a precursor

Abstract A series of SiO2-La2O2CO3 and SiO2-La2O3 mixed oxide/carbonate systems with La/Si molar ratios of 0.05, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5 and 1.0 have been obtained by the sol–gel technique from tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) and metallic lanthanum powder. For the low lanthanum loading systems (La/Si 0.05 to 0.25) the lanthanum carboxy phase is easily transformed to oxide phase during thermal treatment in the presence of silica. The most important advantage of the proposed method is the possibility of obtaining a mixed oxide/carbonate phase and not directly an oxide phase as in the case of other methods. Depending on the calcination temperature and time, the proposed method can be used for obtaining compositions containing dioxycarbonate, oxide or mixed lanthanum phase. The systems were characterized by X-ray diffraction, low temperature nitrogen adsorption, transmission and scanning electron microscopy (TEM, SEM and SEM/EDS), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and FT-IR spectra.