Mesoporous Melamine Resins by Soft Templating of Block-co-Polymer Mesophases

Mesoporous melamine resins have been prepared using hexamethoxymethyl melamine (HMMM) as monomer and block-co-polymer Pluronic F127 as template. At acidic conditions, HMMM condenses into melamine resins, replicating the mesophases formed by the block-co-polymer template. The template can be removed by solvent extraction, yielding mesoporous melamine resins with surface areas of up to 258 m(2)/g and pore diameters of 7.8 nm. At a HMMM/F127 weight ratio of 1:1 an ordered mesoporous melamine resin is observed exhibiting a 2d hexagonal arrangement of cylindrical pores. The simplicity of the synthesis of these mesoporous films allows the large Scale production of the materials, for example, in the form of free-standing films.