Projects per year
Abstract
Unravelling the molecular-level mechanisms that lead to the formation of mesoscale-ordered porous materials is a crucial step towards the goal of computational material design. For silica templated by alkylamine surfactants, a mechanism based on hydrogen-bond interactions between neutral amines and neutral silicates in solution has been widely accepted by the materials science community, despite the lack of conclusive evidence to support it. We demonstrate, through a combination of experimental measurements and multi-scale modelling, that the so-called "neutral templating route" does not represent a viable description of the synthesis mechanism of hexagonal mesoporous silica (HMS), the earliest example of amine-templated porous silica. Instead, the mesoscale structure of the material is defined by charge-matching of ionic interactions between amines and silicates. This has profound implications for the synthesis of a wide range of templated porous materials, and may shed new light on developing sustainable and economical routes to high value porous materials.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1027-1033 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Materials Horizons |
Volume | 6 |
Issue number | 5 |
Early online date | 8 Feb 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2019 |
Keywords
- templated mesoporous silica
- hexagonal mesoporous silica
- charge-matching
- synthesis
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Dive into the research topics of 'The role of charge-matching in nanoporous materials formation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Profiles
Projects
- 2 Finished
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Manufacturing Green Nanoparticles for Efficient Cell Manufacture
Johnston, K. (Principal Investigator) & Patwardhan, S. (Co-investigator)
EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)
22/05/14 → 21/10/17
Project: Research
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Computational modelling and design of nanoporous silica materials
Jorge, M. (Principal Investigator), Centi, A. (Researcher) & Ferreiro-Rangel, C. A. (Researcher)
EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)
12/03/14 → 11/09/15
Project: Research
Datasets
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Data for: "The Role of Charge-Matching in Nanoporous Materials Formation"
Jorge, M. (Creator), University of Strathclyde, 9 Oct 2019
DOI: 10.15129/8f589df4-a60e-4af1-bd24-d3376c25eea9
Dataset