Fabrication of super-microporous nanocrystalline zirconia with high thermal stability

Highlights: • A super-microporous zirconia with high surface area. • The material with high thermal stability. • The material with narrow pore size distribution of 1.5 nm. Super-microporous nanocrystalline zirconia (pore size 1–2 nm) was synthesized via the evaporation-induced self assembly (EISA) process with solid–liquid method. The acidic etching process of zirconia resulted in the formation of microporous material with surface area of 414 m²/g in comparison with that of 141 m²/g for the parent material when treated at 400 °C. Even after calcination at 700 °C, the pore structure was fairly preserved for the post-treated samples and the material still exhibited a high surface area of 223 m²/g. However, for samples without post-treatment, their pore walls collapsed totally and surface area decreased drastically when calcinated at 550 °C.