Sol-gel synthesis of SBA-15:Impact of HCl on surface chemistry

Abstract

Surface functionalisation of mesoporous silicas is critical to their application as sorbents and catalyst supports. Here we report the impact of chloride on the physicochemical properties of SBA-15, notably the surface density of reactive hydroxyl groups. Bulk and surface properties were characterised by N2 porosimetry, X-ray diffraction, SEM, TEM, FTIR spectroscopy, and Inverse gas chromatography (IGC). Increasing the HCl concentration from 0.1 → 2.0 M during the sol-gel preparation of SBA-15 increased the surface silanol coverage two-fold, and slightly widened mesopores from 4.2 to 4.9 nm. IGC reveals that the specific surface energy and corresponding surface polarity of SBA-15 correlate with surface silanol properties, and hence tuning the HCl concentration during SBA-15 synthesis offers a facile route to hydrophilic or hydrophobic silicas, and in turn a means to control their functionalisation and sorptive properties.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micromeso.2018.05.043
Divisions: College of Engineering & Physical Sciences
Additional Information: © 2018, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Uncontrolled Keywords: SBA-15,Hydrothermal synthesis,Silanol density,Surface energy,Inverse gas chromatography (IGC)
Publication ISSN: 1387-1811
Last Modified: 04 Mar 2024 08:26
Date Deposited: 30 May 2018 07:35
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://www.sci ... 3020?via%3Dihub (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2018-11-15
Published Online Date: 2018-05-29
Accepted Date: 2018-05-28
Authors: Pirez, Cyril
Morin, Jean-Charles
Manayil, Jinesh (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-9864-3332)
Lee, Adam
Wilson, Karen

Export / Share Citation


Statistics

Additional statistics for this record