Characteristics and Catalysis of Surface Acidic Groups Formed by Oxidation of Carbon with Nitric Acid

Abstract

Characteristics and catalysis of a cation-exchanging carbon formed by oxidation of carbon with hot nitric acid were investigated in connection with, it's surface acidic groups.
The surface acidic groups on carbon, consisting of strongly and weakly acidic groups, decrease with increasing calcination temperature. The activities of carbon catalysts for dehydration of isopropyl alcohol diminish with decreasing surface acidic groups. It was suggests that the active sites of dehydration on carbon catalysts are the surface acidic, especially strongly acidic groups. As a result of the study on the cation-exchange capacity, it was found that strongly acidic group is alone exchanged by nickel ion. The nickel catalysts supported on the carbon, prepared by the cation-exchange method, exhibit low activity for dehydration but high activity for dehydrogenation of isopropyl alcohol.