Evolution of specific heat capacity with temperature for typical supports used for heterogeneous catalysts

Heterogeneous catalysts are widely used in the chemical industry. Compared with homogeneous catalysts, they can be easily separated from the reaction mixture. To design and optimize an efficient and safe chemical process one needs to calculate the energy balance, implying the need for knowledge of the catalyst's specific heat capacity. Such values are typically not reported in the literature, especially not the temperature dependence. To fill this gap in knowledge, the specific heat capacities of commonly utilized heterogeneous catalytic supports were measured at different temperatures in a Tian-Calvet calorimeter. The following materials were tested: activated carbon, aluminum oxide, amberlite IR120 (H-form), H-Beta-25, H-Beta-38, H-Y-60, H-ZSM-5-23, H-ZSM-5-280, silicon dioxide, titanium dioxide, and zeolite 13X. Polynomial expressions were successfully fitted to the experimental data.