Silica Microspheres-in-Pores Composite Monoliths with Fluorescence and Potential for Water Remediation.

Adham Ahmed,Haifei Zhang,Peter Myers

doi:10.3390/nano11102681

Adham Ahmed, Haifei Zhang + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11102681

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Abstract

Water pollution is a severe worldwide issue. Constructing advanced porous composite materials has been an efficient route to water remediation via adsorption. In this study, a unique microspheres-in-pores monolithic structure was fabricated. An emulsion-templated polymer monolith was first prepared and silica microspheres were subsequently formed in the porous polymer. A silica precursor was modified with a fluorescent dye and co-condensed with other precursors to fabricate porous composites with fluorescent properties, which were enhanced by the presence of Ag nanoparticles in the polymer matrix. This unique material showed good promise in water remediation by removing organic dyes and heavy metal ions from wastewater via a flowing filter or monolithic column separation.

Highlights

Monoliths with Fluorescence and Hybrid or composite materials comprise more than one type of material and combine different properties, which can enhance their performance for various applications [1].The incorporation of porosity and inducing high surface areas into hybrid materials are critical for some applications such as catalysis, separation, tissue engineering and energy storage [1,2,3]
The Stöber synthesis usually involved the use of TEOS as the silica precursor [25,26]
The encapsulation of large silica microspheres within emulsion-templated scaffolds was demonstrated via a ship-in-a-bottle synthesis approach

Summary

Introduction

Monoliths with Fluorescence and Hybrid or composite materials comprise more than one type of material and combine different properties, which can enhance their performance for various applications [1].The incorporation of porosity and inducing high surface areas into hybrid materials are critical for some applications such as catalysis, separation, tissue engineering and energy storage [1,2,3]. The ship-in-a-bottle method is an effective approach to form larger guest molecules or particles in the pores with smaller windows [6,7,8,9,10]. The guest molecules and particles can exist as free-moving items, with a fully accessible surface via the small windows on the pore wall. To prepare hybrid materials by the ship-ina-bottle approach, precursors are usually diffused into the pre-fabricated pores through the windows on the pore wall. Larger guest molecules and more often nanoparticles are formed from the precursors in situ inside the pores. These particles are larger than the pore windows and encapsulated within the pores. Amooghin and co-authors synthesised a Co–organic complex in zeolite

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