Mesoporous Mn–Zr composite oxides with a crystalline wall: synthesis, characterization and application

Abstract

Mesoporous Mn–Zr composite oxides (M–MnZr) with a crystalline wall were designed and achieved by a facile one-pot evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) strategy. As proved by XRD, HRTEM and SAED characterization, the wall of the obtained mesoporous materials exhibited a typical tetragonal phase of ZrO₂. In addition, the introduced manganese species were homogeneously dispersed in the mesoporous skeleton. N₂-physisorption and TEM results showed that all the final materials possessed an obvious mesoporous structure accompanied by a large specific surface area (∼120 m² g⁻¹), big pore volume (∼0.2 cm³ g⁻¹) and uniform pore size (∼4.9 nm). In addition, the liquid phase oxidation was chosen as the test reaction and the excellent catalytic performance of M–MnZr demonstrated their potential applications in oxidation reactions.