Sustainable synthesis of ordered mesoporous materials without additional solvents

Abstract

Micelles with well-defined nanostructures were generally formed in the presence of a suitable solvent. We report herein the accelerated construction of micelles with ordered nanostructures without assistance of additional solvents. The micelles were employed for ultrafast fabrication of ordered mesoporous silicas (OMS) using tetramethyl orthosilicate (TMOS) as silica source. When γ-aminopropyl triethoxysilane precursor was introduced, we obtained amine group (–NH2) decorated ordered mesoporous silicas (OMS-NH2-x, where x stands for the molar ratio of γ-aminopropyl triethoxysilane to TMOS). The resulted materials are large in BET surface area and tunable in content of –NH2 site, which are highly efficient for catalytic elimination of gaseous carbonyl sulfide and hydrogen sulfide. Using this strategy, other functionalized groups such as thiol and benzene can be also introduced into OMS. Furthermore, the introducing of phenolic precursor into the system leads to multiphase co-assembly for the formation of ordered mesoporous silica-polymer nanocomposites. It is demonstrated that the solvent-free ultrafast assembly offers a sustainable route for preparation of ordered mesoporous functional materials.