Partitioned cooperative self-assembly process: taking the mesopore swelling strategy one step further for the preparation of mesocellular foams

Abstract

This work demonstrates that the combination of recently developed partitioned cooperative self-assembly (PCSA) process with the conventional mesopore swelling strategy can take the preparation of mesocellular foams (MCFs) one step further based on cheap sodium silicate precursor. Compared with conventional method derived MCFs, such synthesized MCFs show more uniform cell size distributions without using commonly employed additives, i.e., NH₄F. Furthermore, when prepared with aging at 120 °C via the PCSA process, MCFs with large uniform cells (38.3 nm) and enlarged windows up to 7.9 nm can be obtained, resembling the conventional MCFs based on TEOS/P123/NH₄F system. Moreover, a simple adjustment in the order of addition of trimethylbenzene in the PCSA process produces unique bimodal meso-mesoporous MCFs with ordered normal SBA-15 regions dispersed in the matrix.