Fabrication of the tricontinuous mesoporous IBN-9 structure with surfactant CTAB

Yunfeng Zhao, Lan Zhao, Guangchao Wang, Yu Han

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

IBN-9 is the first tricontinuous mesoporous material, consisting of three identical interpenetrating channels that are separated by a single continuous silica wall. It was originally synthesized using a specially designed surfactant as template. The need of special surfactant in the synthesis inhibits extensive investigation of this novel structure and its applications. We demonstrate in this study that such a complicated tricontinuous mesostructure can also be fabricated from the most common and commercially available surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) with the help of polar organic additives, e.g., n-butanol. The role of n-butanol is to finely tune the surface curvature of the organic/inorganic interface during the cooperative self-assembly process. Electron microscopic techniques are employed to identify different mesostructures from the mixture. This study reveals the possibility of discovering unprecedented mesostructures from conventional surfactant-water- silicates systems. © 2011 American Chemical Society.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)5250-5255
Number of pages6
JournalChemistry of Materials
Volume23
Issue number23
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 13 2011

Bibliographical note

KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Global Collaborative Research AEA program from King Abdullah University of Science and technology.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Materials Chemistry
  • General Chemical Engineering
  • General Chemistry

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