Fabrication and Characterization of Mesostructured Silica, HUM-1, and Its Ordered Mesoporous Carbon Replica

Designing and Fabricating Ordered Mesoporous Metal Oxides for CO₂ Catalytic Conversion: A Review and Prospect

In the past two decades, great progress has been made in the aspects of fabrication and application of ordered mesoporous metal oxides. Ordered mesoporous metal oxides have attracted more and more attention due to their large surface areas and pore volumes, unblocked pore structure, and good thermal stabilities. Compared with non-porous metal oxides, the most prominent feature is their ability to interact with molecules not only on their outer surface but also on the large internal surfaces of the material, providing more accessible active sites for the reactants. This review carefully describes the characteristics, classification and synthesis of ordered mesoporous metal oxides in detail. Besides, it also summarizes the catalytic application of ordered mesoporous metal oxides in the field of carbon dioxide conversion and resource utilization, which provides prospective viewpoints to reduce the emission of greenhouse gas and the inhibition of global warming. Although the scope of current review is mainly limited to the ordered mesoporous metal oxides and their application in the field of CO₂ catalytic conversion via heterogeneous catalysis processes, we believe that it will provide new insights and viewpoints to the further development of heterogeneous catalytic materials.

Synthesis of cubic Ia-3d mesoporous silica in anionic surfactant templating system with the aid of acetate

Mesoporous silica with three-dimensional (3D) bicontinuous cubic Ia-3d structure and fascinating caterpillar-like morphology was synthesized by using anionic surfactant N-lauroylsarcosine sodium (Sar-Na) as the template and 3-amionpropyltrimethoxysilane (APS) as the co-structure-directing agent (CSDA) with the aid of acetate. A phase transformation from high interfacial curvature 2D hexagonal to low interfacial curvature 3D cubic Ia-3d occurred in the presence of a proper amount of acetate. Other species of salts (excluding acetate) had the ability to induce the caterpillar-like morphology, but failed to induce the cubic Ia-3d mesostructure. Furthermore, [3-(2-aminoethyl)-aminopropyl]trimethoxysilane (DAPS) was also used as the CSDA to synthesize Ia-3d mesostructured silica under the aid of sodium acetate. After extraction of the anionic surfactants, amino and di-amine functionalized 3D bicontinuous cubic Ia-3d mesoporous silicas were obtained and used as supports to immobilize Pd nanoparticles for supported catalysts. The catalytic activity of the catalysts was tested by catalytic hydrogenation of allyl alcohol.