A meso-macroporous borosilicate monolith prepared by a sol-gel method

A meso-macroporous borosilicate monolith was prepared for the first time using a sol-gel method. The proposed material was subsequently characterized by FTIR-ATR and solid-state NMR experiments to investigate the chemical environment of boron in the silica framework. The results showed that boron formed Si-O-B bonds and largely existed as three-coordinated symmetrical structure as well as some tetrahedral structure in the skeleton. According to the ICP-AES experiment, the highest [B]/[Si] molar ratio was 0.15 in the final product. And a bimodal porosity was investigated by SEM, mercury porosimeter and nitrogen adsorption-desorption experiments. This new borosilicate monolithic material could have potential application in both chemical and biological sciences for separation, enrichment or catalysis. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.