A study of morphology of mesoporous silica SBA-15

摘要

The mesoporous silica SBA-15 in various morphologies micrometer-sized fibers, millimeter-scaled ropes and macrospheres have been conveniently prepared by controlling the chemical composition. For reducing the size of particles of the SBA-15 materials, a delayed agitation process was found to lead to nanometer-sized fibers. We propose that it generates numerous nucleation seeds at the interface of TEOS and surfactant water solution and leads to very small fibers. With a proper aging time of 20 minutes, silica nanotubes-bundles with diameter of about 100 nm were obtained. In addition to the normal mesopores, the SBA-15 silica nanotubes possess extra textural porosity.