Niloufar Ghavami - Chemical Engineering Department, Babol University of Technology, P.O. Box ۴۸۴, ۴۷۱۴۸۷۱۱۶۷ Babol, Iran
Majid Taghizadeh - Chemical Engineering Department, Babol University of Technology, P.O. Box ۴۸۴, ۴۷۱۴۸۷۱۱۶۷ Babol, Iran
Fereydoon Yaripour

Template-free sol-gel method was employed to prepare mesoporous nanocrystalline g-Al2O3. The prepared alumina was characterized by powder XRD, N2 adsorption-desorption. Starting with aluminum ethoxide in an alcoholic solvent, where colloidal solution were initially obtained, resulted in mesoporous g-alumina with relatively high surface areas, 469.77 m2/g, and large total pore volumes, 0.9013 cc/g. In this study, the Taguchi method was applied for optimizing the most significant sol-gel parameters to achieve the largest pore diameter and the highest pore volume. The effects of three variables, pH of the solution, water/Al(Eto) molar ratio, aging time and temperature, at three levels were investigated. The optimization results showed that aging time have a great importance on crystal size of gamma alumina.

-Al2O3, sol-gel, mesoporous, optimization, Taguchi method