Facile Preparation and Promising Hydrothermal Stability of Spherical γ-Alumina Support with High Specific Surface Area

It is of great importance to develop a spherical γ-alumina support with high hydrothermal stability to be used in platinum reforming catalyst processes. The porous pseudo-boehmite powder with a high surface area was first synthesized via a simple separate nucleation and aging steps method, and was then used as a precursor to produce a spherical γ-Al2O3 support via an oil–ammonia column method. The as-synthesized pseudo-boehmite has a substantially greater specific surface area of 336.0 m2·g−1 in comparison with the commercial Sasol boehmite powder (293.0 m2·g−1) from Sasol Chemicals. In addition, the as-prepared spherical γ-Al2O3 support derived from the as-synthesized pseudo-boehmite also possesses a higher specific surface area of 280.0 m2·g−1 compared to the corresponding Sasol sample. Moreover, the as-prepared spherical γ-Al2O3 balls demonstrate a much higher specific surface area of 185.0 m2·g−1 compared with the Sasol sample of 142.0 m2·g−1 after hydrothermal tests at 600 °C, suggesting its promising application in the chemical industry.