Preparation and catalytic behavior of biomorphic calcium oxide/carbon solid base materials

Abstract

Using plant materials as templates is a convenient and low-cost route to prepare solid base catalysts with high specific surface area. In this study, a series of biomorphic calcium oxide/carbon catalysts have been prepared via an in situ transformation technique using rice grains as a template and carbon precursor. The resulting CaO/carbon materials are spindly shaped catalysts and show a high specific surface area and strong basicity. In the methylation of cyclopentadiene, these CaO/carbon materials exhibit a higher catalytic performance than MgO/carbon materials and CaO prepared by directly calcining the CaO precursor. Moreover, the regeneration of deactivated catalyst is studied, and steam or CO₂ treatment at high temperature is found to be very effective for this carbon supported catalyst, and can even promote the catalytic activity. A possible mechanism for the deactivation and regeneration of the CaO/carbon materials has been proposed.