Different morphologies of silica synthesized using organic templates from the same class of chiral compounds

Abstract

Rarely known round silica tubes with a hollow shell and square silica tubes, in addition to convenient hollow spheres, hollow spheres with a hole, and helical nanoribbons, could be synthesized using organic templates from the same class of organic compounds, arylacrylonitrile tartaric acids. A novel process of dissolving and re-assembling of template aggregates was the reason for forming a variety of morphologies of silica except square silica tubes which were directly controlled by template aggregates. The chirality of the template molecules played a key role in the formation mechanism of silica, in which not only the chirality of the silica nanoribbons but also the silica morphology could be controlled by the chirality of the template molecules.