Investigation of Structural and Physical Properties of Composite Catalyst Support with Exfoliated Graphite Additive

The methodology for manufacturing composite catalyst supports comprising 50 wt. % exfoliated graphite by mold pressing was developed. The technique of wetting a relatively hydrophobic powder with liquid to obtain uniform paste for press machine was proposed and tested. The dependencies of the samples density on the compacting pressure were obtained. The structural characterization was done, i.e. specific surface area, porosity, microand mesopores volume, pore size distribution were measured. It was found that obtained samples have a specific surface area of about 340 m/g, total pore volume of about 0.28 cm/g at a true density of 2.3–2.5 g/сm, practically regardless of compacting pressure in the range from 16 to 230 MPa. The thermal conductivity coefficients of the sample pressed at 230 MPa were 3.6 and 12.2 W/(m⋅K) along the cylinder axis and perpendicular to it, respectively. This anisotropy is due to specific preferential orientation of the heatconducting component. The composite reveals similar anisotropy in strength. The strength was measured as 39.4 and 87.6 N/granule along the axis of the granule and perpendicular to it, respectively. The results of the paper demonstrate that a contradictive task of combining high specific surface area, strength and thermal conductivity can be realized in one sample, which is important for catalysis applications.