Palladium oxide and/or ceria can be successfully incorporated into mesoporous zirconia via a surfactant assisted method with a suitable post-treatment process. The X-ray powder diffraction, HRTEM, EDX, etc., were adopted for the characterization of the synthesized materials. The catalysis of propylene oxidation and the Heck reaction was also studied. The results show that palladium can be homogeneously dispersed into/onto the surface of mesoporous zirconia. The prepared palladium/ceria-loaded sample shows good catalysis on propylene oxidation, and the palladium/mesoporous zirconia shows distinctively high selectivity and low catalyst consumption in the Heck catalytic process.

Key words: mesoporous zirconia, palladium, ceria, catalyst