Titania and zirconia binary oxides as catalysts for total oxidation of ethyl acetate and methanol decomposition

Template assisted hydrothermal and homogeneous precipitation with urea techniques were used for the preparation of TiO2-ZrO2 binary oxides with wide range variation of their composition. Low temperature nitrogen physisorption, XRD, SEM, HRTEM, XPS, UV-vis, FTIR, FTIR of adsorbed pyridine and Raman spectroscopy were used for the characterization of the obtained samples. Their catalytic properties were tested in total oxidation of ethyl acetate as a representative VOCs and methanol decomposition as hydrogen carrier. It was established that the template assisted hydrothermal technique provoked preparation of materials with good crystallinity, high BET surface area and well developed mesoporous structure, while the homogeneous precipitation with urea method facilitated the formation of more highly dispersed in wide Zr/Ti region samples. The degree of incorporation of Zr4+ ions into titania lattice could be controlled by the samples composition and the preparation method used, which revealed good opportunity for effective and simple regulation of their catalytic properties.