Hierarchical mesoporous SrCO3 submicron spheres derived from reaction-limited aggregation induced “rod-to-dumbbell-to-sphere” self-assembly

Abstract

Hierarchical mesoporous SrCO3 submicron spheres were fabricated via a facile and direct hydrothermal method. This was realized via the room temperature co-precipitation of Na2CO3 and SrCl2 solution in presence of appropriate amount of MgCl2 and ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid disodium salt, which led to bouquet-like SrCO3 nanostructures at first. Then the precipitate was hydrothermally treated at 190 °C for 12.0 h, resulting in uniform hierarchical SrCO3 submicron spheres. The characterization results definitely determined the hierarchical SrCO3 submicron spheres of mesoporous structure, bearing a specific surface area of 40.2 m2 g−1, a total pore volume of 0.145 cm3 g−1, and a narrow pore size distribution concentrating on 3–20 nm with an average pore diameter of 14.4 nm. Finally, the reaction-limited aggregation induced “rod-to-dumbbell-to-sphere” mechanism was proposed to explain the formation of the hierarchical mesoporous submicron spheres.