Preparation of Ethenylene-Silica Hollow Spheres with a Single-Layer of Mesopores Using a Chiral Amphiphile

Abstract

A chiral cationic low-molecular-weight amphiphile, derived from L-phenylalanine, was synthesized. It can gel benzene, toluene and chlorobenzene and cause viscous liquids in deionized water and tetrahydrofuran. Ethenylene-silica hollow nanospheres with a single-layer of pore channels in their shells were prepared using the self-assemblies of this amphiphile as templates. Small angle X-ray diffraction pattern indicated that the pore channels did not arrange in a high degree of order. The formation of this hierarchical porous structure was studied by taking TEM images after different reaction time. It was found that the morphologies of the amphiphile-ethenylene-silica assemblies changed gradually during the sol-gel transcription process. Moreover, silica hollow spheres were also prepared using this amphiphiles.