Effect of Seedings on the Microstructure of Hydrated Alumina

Abstract

The morphology and particle size of boehmite play a decisive role on the application of alumina that derived from it. In this paper, we employed pseudoboehmite that produced from Al2 (SO4)3•18H2O and NH3•H2O at 70 °C, pH 7.5 as precursor to synthesize boehmite, and utilized different seeding when preparing pseudoboehmite and boehmite. To identify the influence of seeding on the microstructure of pseudoboehmite and boehmite, the products were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and BET. The results indicate that the pseudoboehmite seeding has a significant influence on the morphology and particle size of pseudoboehmite to which we should pay high attention. However, the boehmite seeding does not play the role of crystal nucleus as expected. The further intrinsic mechanism study is ongoing.