The role of charge-matching in nanoporous materials formation

Alessia Centi, Joseph R. H. Manning, Vibha Srivastava, Sandra van Meurs, Siddharth V. Patwardhan, Miguel Jorge

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)
28 Downloads (Pure)

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 languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1027-1033
Number of pages7
JournalMaterials Horizons
Volume6
Issue number5
Early online date8 Feb 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2019

Keywords

  • templated mesoporous silica
  • hexagonal mesoporous silica
  • charge-matching
  • synthesis

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