The aim of this work was in application of the templated sol-gel approach for the rational design of mesoporous silica coatings on woven fibre glass used as advanced catalyst support.

The sol-gel precursor was synthesised by acidic hydrolysis of Si(OC₂H₅)₄ to which cetyltrimethylammonium bromide template was added afterwards. The initial glass fibre was dip-coated with sol-gel precursor and the resulting dry fibre material with the deposited silica coating was calcined in air at 400 ºC to complete condensation of siloxane oligomers into silica framework and to remove template molecules from the template-doped coating. In this way the apparent surface area of fibrous catalyst support was increased from 0.4 to 13.0 m²/g due to formation of pores of ~ 2.7 nm diameter. According to SEM images, the glass filaments of 6-9 μm in diameter are completely coated with mesoporous silica film and do not form the flocks.

The model Ni catalyst was synthesised by incorporation of Ni²⁺ species into mesoporous silica coating via ion-exchange in Ni(NH₃)₆(NO₃)₂ aqueous solution. A subsequent reduction in H₂ at 400 ºC resulted in the formation of Ni nanoparticles which exhibited catalytic activity in the reaction of toluene hydrogenation to methylcyclohexane.

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1. Sol-gel synthesis and functionalisation of multi-layered template-structured silica films on glass substrate
2. Application of expanded graphite in supported Ni catalysts