Catalytic decomposition of nitrous oxide has been carried out over calcined
cobalt aluminum hydrotalcites of general formula [Co1-xAlx (OH)(2)[CO3](x/
2) H2O where x = 0.25-0.33 at 50 Torr (1 Torr = 133 Pa) initial pressure of
N2O in a static glass recirculatory reactor (130 cc) in the temperature ra
nge 150-280 degrees C. All catalysts showed a first order dependence in N2O
without significant oxygen inhibition. The activity increased with an incr
ease in cobalt concentration present in the sample. The catalyst precursor
synthesized under low supersaturation (LS) exhibited a higher activity than
the precursor synthesized by sequential precipitation (SP) method. The obs
erved trend in the activity is explained based on the surface concentration
of cobalt, determined by XPS and matrix effects. Prior to catalytic studie
s, the fresh and calcined samples were characterized by various physicochem
ical techniques such as XRD, FT-IR, TG-DSC, TEM (with EDAX) and BET surface
area measurements. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.