Centi, A., Manning, J., Srivastava, V. et al. (3 more authors) (2019) The role of charge-matching in nanoporous materials formation. Materials Horizons, 6 (5). pp. 1027-1033. ISSN 2051-6347
Abstract
Unravelling the molecular-level mechanisms that lead to the formation of mesoscale-ordered porous materials is a crucial step towards the goal of computational material design. For silica templated by alkylamine surfactants, a mechanism based on hydrogen-bond interactions between neutral amines and neutral silicates in solution has been widely accepted by the materials science community, despite the lack of conclusive evidence to support it. We demonstrate, through a combination of experimental measurements and multi-scale modelling, that the so-called “neutral templating route” does not represent a viable description of the synthesis mechanism of hexagonal mesoporous silica (HMS), the earliest example of amine-templated porous silica. Instead, the mesoscale structure of the material is defined by charge-matching of ionic interactions between amines and silicates. This has profound implications for the synthesis of a wide range of templated porous materials, and may shed new light on developing sustainable and economical routes to high value porous materials.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2019. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Materials Horizons. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL (EPSRC) EP/P006892/1 ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL (EPSRC) EP/L017059/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 19 Feb 2019 10:10 |
Last Modified: | 17 Nov 2021 11:02 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Royal Society of Chemistry |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1039/C8MH01640B |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:142193 |