Preparation and Proton Conductivity of Surfactant‐Templated Mesoporous Silica Gels Impregnated with Protonic Acids

Abstract

Surfactant‐templated mesoporous silica gel that was impregnated with various protonic acids has been prepared, and we propose this material as a new type of proton conductor. The conductivity of the mesoporous silica gel that was impregnated with 5.0M H2SO4 was ∼1 × 10−4 S/cm at room temperature in a dry nitrogen‐gas atmosphere after drying in vacuo at room temperature; this value was four orders of magnitude greater than that of silica gel that was prepared via the conventional sol–gel method and impregnated with H2SO4. The amount of impregnated H2SO4 in the mesoporous silica gel was ∼2.5 times larger than that of impregnated H2SO4 in the conventional silica gel. The H2O molecules in the mesoporous silica gel that was impregnated with H2SO4 remained in the pores of the gel, even after drying in vacuo at room temperature.