Structure, thermal-stability and reducibility of Si-doped Ce–Zr–O solid solution

The Si-doped Ce–Zr–O solid solutions have been prepared by the reverse microemulsion method. The effects of Si and its content on the structure characters, thermal-stability and reducibility of the Ce–Zr–O solid solution have been studied by N2 adsorption, XRD, laser Raman (LR), TPR, FT-IR, NMR and XPS methods. The results indicate that, there are the bonds of Si–O–M (Ce or Zr) in the Ce–Zr–Si–O solid solutions, and the presence of Si can increase obviously the surface area, thermal-stability, crystal lattice distortion rate, and reducibility of the solid solution. The surface area of the sample with 20 wt.% Si reaches 153 m2 g−1 after being calcined at 900 °C for 6 h. The Ce–Zr–O solid solution with 5.2–10 wt.% Si shows excellent thermal-stability and reducibility.