Amorphous mesostructured zirconia with high (hydro)thermal stability.

Here, combining the evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) method and the liquid crystal templating pathway, mesostructured amorphous zirconium oxides have been prepared by a soft templating method without addition of any heteroelement to stabilize the mesopore framework. The recovered materials have been characterized by SAXS measurements, nitrogen adsorption-desorption analysis and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The obtained mesostructured zirconia exhibits a high thermal stability. An in situ XRD study performed as a function of temperature shows that the amorphous ZrO2, obtained after removal of the pore templating agent (pluronic P123), begins to crystallize in air from 420 °C. Amorphous mesostructured ZrO2 also presents a high hydrothermal stability; these materials are not degraded after 72 hours in boiling water.

Insights into the Formation and Properties of Templated Dual Mesoporous Titania with Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity.

The one pot synthesis of dual mesoporous titania (2.3 and 7.7 nm) has been achieved from a mixture of fluorinated and Pluronic surfactants. The small and large mesopore networks are templated, respectively, by a fluorinated-rich liquid crystal and a Pluronic-rich liquid crystal, which are in equilibrium. After calcination at 350 °C, the amorphous walls are transformed into semicrystalline anatase preserving the mesoporous structure. Results concerning the photodegradation of methyl orange using the calcined photocatalysts highlight that the kinetic rate constant (k) determined for the dual mesoporous titania is 2.6 times higher than the k value obtained for the monomodal ones.

Investigation of mixed fluorinated and triblock copolymer liquid crystals: imprint for mesostructured bimodal silica.

Due to the difference in «mutual phobicity¼ between fluorocarbon and hydrocarbon chains, mixtures of fluorinated and hydrogenated surfactants are excellent candidates to design bimodal systems having two types of mesopores. In literature, only a few papers deal with these bimodal systems. Here hexagonal liquid crystal mixtures of the polyoxyethylene fluoroalkyl ether [R(F)8(EO)9] and the Pluronic [P123] have been used to template this kind of mesostructure through the liquid crystal mechanism, which is barely considered. After the detailed investigation of the R(F)8(EO)9/P123/water liquid crystal domain, materials have been synthesized and characterized by small angle X-ray scattering, transmission electron microscopy and nitrogen adsorption-desorption analysis. Our results show that this system provides two separate pore sizes in the materials over the mesoporous range. The ratio between the small mesopores and the large ones depends on the proportion between the porogens in the mixture. Nonetheless, we also outline that a minimum quantity of silica is required to recover the two hexagonal networks.