Peptization and Al-Keggin Species in Alumina Sol

A novel sol-gel proces for preparing alumina sol is reported in this article. Using this new method alumina sols can be prepared from inexpensive materials such as inorganic aluminium salts. Influence of the type and amount of acid (HCl(aq) and HNO3(aq)), used for aluminium hydroxide peptization, were investigated.27Al NMR, N2 absorption (single- point BET), X-ray diffraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy (IR) and dynamic thermoanalytical meauserments (TG) were used to detect the properties of the alumina sol and xerogel. The results of 27Al NMR shows there are Keggin- Al13 7+ species in the sol. Besides Al13 7+ species some other reactive polymers with hexameric ring structure also exist in the sol. The results of this work show that the higher ratio n(acid) / n( Al(OH)3) (peptization ratio) leads to an increase in crystallinity and amount of water in the aluminium xerogel, and to a decrease in specific surface area. The results also show that the role of acid is not only as catalyst for peptizing, but also as reactant to react with aluminium hydroxide to produce the Al13 7+ species, and other reactive aluminium polymers.