Compositional tunability and high temperature stability of ceria–zirconia hollow spheres

Cerium oxide is a widely used catalyst support due to favorable oxygen storage and release properties. The present investigation was undertaken to improve the thermal stability of hollow ceria shells by incorporation of zirconium. Hollow ceria spheres were doped with zirconium in the range of 1–13 atomic percent by a solvothermal method. In situ high-temperature XRD revealed that samples with greater than 5% zirconium were significantly more resistant to crystallite growth than pure ceria samples. Additionally, nitrogen adsorption porosimetry showed that doped samples retained their specific surface area to higher temperatures than undoped samples. Transmission electron microscopy was used to confirm high temperature stability (up to 1100 °C) of the hollow sphere morphology.