Enhanced Acidity Features of ZrO2-Pillared Montmorillonite Catalyst by Bimetallic Ni/Mo Hasanudin Hasanudin and Wan Ryan Asri
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Universitas Sriwijaya, Indralaya 30662, Indonesia.
Biofuel Research Group, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Universitas Sriwijaya, Indralaya 30662, Indonesia.
Abstract
In this work, a series of natural montmorillonite, ZrO2-pillared montmorillonite (MZ), and Ni/Mo-MZ with various weight ratios were synthesized to enhance the acidity features of natural montmorillonite. The catalyst was prepared using the wet impregnation method. The acidity features of total acidity, surface acidity, and pore acidity was assessed using the gravimetric method using NH3 and pyridine as a probe. The Bronsted and Lewis acid site was investigated using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The textural features were assessed using N2 physisorption. The study showed that the impregnation of Ni/Mo on MZ increased the acidity features, whereas the textural features seemed to be not correlated to the acidity features. The Mo-MZ catalyst achieved the highest catalyst acidity with a total acidity of 1.6475 mmol NH3/g catalysts, surface acidity of 2.1234 mmol pyridine/g catalysts, and pore acidity of 0.4768 mmol/g catalysts.
