A few hundreds nanometer-sized mesoporous silica and alumina spheres were synthesized in organic solvents. The impacts of ammonia, N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and stirring speed were also investigated.
LUO Qian, LI Li, XUE Zhi-yuan and ZHAO Dong-yuan (Department of Chemistry
Highly ordered hexagonal mesoporous silica SBA-15 with tunable morphology such as donut-like has been synthesized through the cosolvent approach. Donut-like SBA-15 prepared by using DMF cosolvent shows highly ordered circle channels and large mesopore size of 9.9 nm and pore volume of 1.45 cm3/g. Cosurfactant approach has also been used to control the morphology of SBA-15, resulting that highly ordered hard spheres (uniformed diameter—800 nm) mesoporous silica are formed. The morphology of mesoporous SBA-15 is much depended on the surface curvature energy of interface of inorganic silica and organic block copolymer species.