Synthesis of core-shell and hollow structured dual-mesoporous silica templated by alkoxysilyl-functionalized ionic liquids and CTAB

A simple and effective one-step method was proposed for the fabrication of dual-mesoporous silica, which was templated by alkoxysilyl-functionalized ionic liquid and cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), with potential application in alkylation of o-xylene and styrene. Ionic liquid act as both template and silica source in this system. The influence of pH of solvent and concentration of alkoxysilyl-functionalized ionic liquid to the morphology of obtained silica was studied in detail. The results showed that the as-prepared silica materials with core-shell or hollow structure could be fabricated by adjusting the pH and ionic liquid concentration, which is strongly related to the unique features of alkoxysilyl-functionalized ionic liquid with organic silicon chain. The possible mechanism was proposed based on the interaction between ionic liquid and CTAB. This new method is also applicable to synthesize the other hierarchical porous silica materials by using organic silyl functional ionic liquid. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.