The discovery of mesoporous molecular sieves from the twenty year perspective

By the combination of prior knowledge, observation skills, and novel synthetic approaches, we discovered a family of mesoporous molecular sieves including discrete structures – MCM-41 (hexagonal), MCM-48 (cubic), and MCM-50 (lamellar). These materials were formed unlike that of our classical microporous structures involving reagent induced-macromolecular templating mechanism. Based on synthetic data and working with others, we were able to establish a predictive mechanism of formation and identify a broad class of templating reagents. These initial findings generated great interest and effort worldwide. It resulted in tremendous expansion of knowledge and skills with many new additional discoveries that established a new area of ordered mesoporous materials. They are integrated with zeolites (microporous materials) and based on surfactant inorganic chemistry.