Effect of Wood Flour Addition on the Pore Volume and BET Surface Area Properties of the Prepared Gamma Alumina (ɤ-Al2O3) Extrudates Used in Catalyst Carriers

The effect of Wood Flour addition to the gamma alumina powder used in the preparation of gamma alumina (ɤ-Al2O3) catalyst carrier extrudates on the pore volume and BET surface area physical properties was investigated. Two parameters which are size of wood flour particles and its quantity were studied. The sizes of wood flour particles used are 150 µm, 212 µm and 500 µm and the weight percentage added to the gamma alumina powder during the preparation of the extrudates are (1%, 3%, 5% and 10%). The results showed that the addition of wood flour to the gamma alumina powder in order to get gamma alumina extrudates used as catalyst carrier is one of the successful methods to improve the pore volume and BET surface area of the alumina extrudates. The size of wood flour particles and its quantity have main effect on the above texture properties. The smaller the size of wood flour leaded to higher BET surface area, where maximum BET surface area of 127.3 m2/g was got with addition 10% by weight wood flour of 150µm particle size. BET surface area for the same addition percentage of 10% resulted to 114.5m2/g and 105.2m2/g when adding wood flour of 212 µm and 500 µm particle sizes respectively. The weight percentage of wood flour addition has an effect on the BET surface area, where the 3% addition gives maximum BET surface area when the size of the wood flour particles is 500 µm. Regarding the pore volume property for the gamma alumina prepared extrudates, the results showed that the pore volume of the extrudates increased to 0.83 cm3/g and 1.0 cm3/g when 10% wood flour of 150 µm and 500 µm particle sizes were added respectively. The maximum BET surface area was reached when 10% wood flour of 150 µm particle size was added, and the maximum pore volume was reached when 10% wood flour of 500 µm particle size was added, the increase percentage for the BET surface area and pore volume is more than 40% and 400% respectively.