A novel, efficient and facile method for the template removal from mesoporous materials

Abstract

A new catalytic-oxidation method was adopted to remove the templates from SBA-15 and MCM-41 mesoporous materials via Fenton-like techniques under microwave irradiation. The mesoporous silica materials were treated with different Fenton agents based on the template’s property and textural property. The samples were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction(XRD) measurement, N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms, infrared spectroscopy, 29Si MAS NMR and thermo gravimetric analysis(TGA). The results reveal that this is an efficient and facile approach to the thorough template-removal from mesoporous silica materials, as well as to offering products with more stable structures, higher BET surface areas, larger pore volumes and larger quantity of silanol groups.