A facile route to synthesize mesoporous zirconia with ultra high thermal stability

The mesoporous zirconia with ultra high thermal stability was synthesized via a controllable and facile sol–gel approach. It is found that the strong alkaline solution post-treatment exerted a critical influence on improving the thermal stability of the product. Even after calcination at 700 °C for 4 h, the worm-like mesopore system was fairly preserved in the post-treated product and the sample exhibited a high specific area (198 m2 g−1). Whereas for those samples without any post-treatment, its pore walls totally collapsed during calcinations above 400 °C, and the specific area drastically decreased.