Preparation and catalytic behavior of biomorphic calcium oxide/carbon solid base materials

Using plant materials as templates is a convenient and low-cost route to prepare solid base catalysts with high specific surface area. In this study, a series of biomorphic calcium oxide/carbon catalysts have been prepared via an in situ transformation technique using rice grains as a template and carbon precursor. The resulting CaO/carbon materials are spindly shaped catalysts and show a high specific surface area and strong basicity. In the methylation of cyclopentadiene, these CaO/carbon materials exhibit a higher catalytic performance than MgO/carbon materials and CaO prepared by directly calcining the CaO precursor. Moreover, the regeneration of deactivated catalyst is studied, and steam or CO2 treatment at high temperature is found to be very effective for this carbon supported catalyst, and can even promote the catalytic activity. A possible mechanism for the deactivation and regeneration of the CaO/carbon materials has been proposed.