An aerosol method to synthesize supported metal catalyst nanoparticles

A novel route to prepare supported metal catalytic materials by a one-step aerosol process is presented. The system setup was made as simple as possible in order to ease scale-up. It consisted of a bubbler and a tubular flow reactor. The metal oxide support was prepared by thermal decomposition of a metalorganic precursor and the metal was added by evaporation/condensation. The performance of the system was tested with Ag on TiO₂ support. The powders were characterised using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen adsorption, ICP/AES and elemental analysis. The silver was well dispersed in 1–2 nm sized particles on the surface of the agglomerated titania support particles. The primary particle size of the anatase phased titania was 13–22 nm. The prepared powder had a high specific surface area, between 40 and 90 m²/g.