Synthesis of a three-dimensional cubic mesoporous silica monolith employing an organic additive through an evaporation-induced self-assembly process

Sajo P Naik; Wei Fan; Toshiyuki Yokoi; Tatsuya Okubo

doi:10.1021/la060497b

Synthesis of a three-dimensional cubic mesoporous silica monolith employing an organic additive through an evaporation-induced self-assembly process

Langmuir. 2006 Jul 4;22(14):6391-7. doi: 10.1021/la060497b.

Authors

Sajo P Naik¹, Wei Fan, Toshiyuki Yokoi, Tatsuya Okubo

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemical System Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.

PMID: 16800704
DOI: 10.1021/la060497b

Abstract

We demonstrate a robust approach to the synthesis of a 3D cubic Im3m mesoporous silica monolith from SiO2/cetyltrimethylammoniumbromide (CTAB)/1,3,5-triisopropylbenzene (TIPB) sols having molar compositions of 1SiO2/0.0017HCl/5.2H2O/10EtOH/0.10CTAB/0.1-0.5TIPB by the evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) process. The addition of TIPB is aimed at altering the micelle geometry to spheroid from rodlike in the gel state; the change in micelle geometry leads to the formation of a 3D cage-type cubic mesostructure in the monolith. The synthesized materials exhibit BET surface areas of 800-1000 m(2)/g, a BJH pore diameter of 2.9-4.3 nm, and a pore volume of 0.7-1.0 cm(3)/g, demonstrating ultrahigh porosity of the 3D cubic mesostructure.