Bimodal mesoporous silica with bottleneck pores.

Bimodal mesoporous silica consisting of two sets of well-defined mesopores is synthesized by a partial pseudomorphic transformation of an ordered mesoporous starting material (SBA-15 type). The introduction of a second set of smaller mesopores (MCM-41 type) establishes a pore system with bottlenecks that restricts the access to the core of the bimodal mesoporous silica particles. The particle size and shape of the starting material are retained, but micropores present in the starting material disappear during the transformation, leading to a true bimodal mesoporous product. A varying degree of transformation allows the adjustment of the pore volume contribution of the two mesopore domains. Information on the accessibility of the mesopores is obtained by the adsorption of fluorescence-labeled poly(amidoamine) dendrimers and imaging by confocal laser scanning microscopy. This information is correlated with nitrogen sorption data to provide insights regarding the spatial distribution of the two mesopore domains. The bimodal mesoporous materials are excellent model systems for the investigation of cavitation effects in nitrogen desorption isotherms.