Preparation of Mesoporous/Macroporous Materials in Highly Concentrated Emulsions Based on Cubic Phases by a Single-Step Method

Abstract

A novel and simple single-step method for the preparation of meso/macroporous silica materials is described, which consists in templating in highly concentrated emulsions with a cubic liquid crystal in the continuous phase. Tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) was solubilized in the aqueous continuous phase of highly concentrated emulsions stabilized by C(12)(EO)(8) and a PEO-PPO-PEO block copolymer nonionic surfactant, with a cubic liquid crystalline phase of the Fd3m type. The resulting silica materials were characterized by small-angle X-ray scattering, nitrogen sorption and transmission electron microscopy. The results showed that a dual pore size distribution was obtained, consisting of mesopores in the nanometer range and macropores between 1 and 5 μm. These dual meso/macroporous silicas with bimodal pore size distribution can possess specific surface areas higher than 400 m(2)/g.

The Preparation and Chemical Structure Analysis of Novel POSS-Based Porous Materials

“…Generally, there were several traditional methods to prepare porous materials, for example, the emulsion templating method [12], contemplate method [13], sol-gel approach [14,15,16], and so forth. Recent examples of the successful synthesis of macroporous materials using highly concentrated emulsions have been described [17,18]. In addition, controlled phase separation, induced by polymers such as poly (acrylamide) [19] and poly (propylene glycol) [20], is also a widely used method to produce porous materials.…”

Spotlight on Biomimetic Systems Based on Lyotropic Liquid Crystal

“…Among the different types of continuous emulsion-phase, LLC are the most versatile structures, enabling the production of mesoporous or macroporous material by a simple, single-step method, through the modeling of highly concentrated emulsions with liquid cubic crystals in the continuous phase [ 41 , 42 ]. Alam and Aramaki published a review on the progress and prospects of LLC, based on emulsions.…”

Hierarchical mesoporous silica templated by the combination of fine emulsion and micelles

“…The development of hierarchical porous materials at multiple scales was thus the subject of interest over the last few years. Different strategies have been developed to design these compounds [10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. One of them consists in combining the sol-gel chemistry and the use of surfactant molecules assemblies as framework templates.…”