In situ coating metal oxide on SBA-15 in one-pot synthesis

The in situ coating process of MgO or CuO on SBA-15 is anatomized in this article. Metal oxide-modified SBA-15 functional mesoporous materials can be directly synthesized through adding simple precursor salts into the synthetic system, recovering the composites via evaporation and subsequent calcination. The salt effect on the structure of SBA-15 and the dispersion of guest oxide were investigated. In this one-pot method, the guest species incorporate into the SBA-15 structure during the evaporation and calcinations, and both cation and anion in the salts affect the mesostructure of composite. The effect of anion follows the lyotropic series: NO(3)(-) < Cl(-) < CH(3)COO(-). Cations undergo complexation with the EO groups of P123 upon the evaporation to produce a [M(EO)(x)]X(n) complex. The competition between the surface silanol groups and PEO headgroups in P123 to the cations and the interactions among PEO headgroup, cation and anion determine the final dispersion level of oxides on the SBA-15. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.