Preparation of Hard Mesoporous Silica Spheres

Abstract

Large, hard, transparent, mesoporous silica spheres are synthesized in one step by using oil-in-water emulsion chemistry under basic conditions with cationic surfactants and (n-BuO)4Si. The pores are shown by TEM and nitrogen absorption studies to be monodispersed in size, with total surface area over 1000 m2/g.