Hydration dehydration effect on morphology and basic strength of nano-calcium oxide

Abstract

Recently, attention has been given to base heterogeneous catalysis reactions and have attracted broad field of scientific researches. Alkaline earth metal oxide calcium oxide (CaO) having rock salt crystal structure, with surface defect and cavities are important for their basic catalytic reactivity. In this study CaO with high surface area and at nano level was prepared by hydration-dehydration method, calcined at various temperatures and of high vacuum of 10 -3 mbar. The effect of thermal decomposition of the samples towards the morphology and chemical reactivity was charact zerized using Thermogravimetry-Derivative Thermogravimetry (TG-DTG) analysis, X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM). The effect of hydration-dehydration on the basic strength was then analysed using back titration method. It was found, by increasing the calcinations temperature, the morphology of nano CaO changes from hexagonal to cubic. The basic strength, on the other is doubled compared to the CaO commercially available.