Amino functionalisation of microemulsion templated mesoporous silica foams

Abstract

Large pore microemulsion templated mesoporous silica foams (MCF), with spherical cell sizes of around 40 nm, were chemically modified via a reaction in dry solvent with (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES) and a vapour phase reaction with (3-aminopropyl)dimethylethoxysilane (APDMES). Nitrogen sorption measurements showed that in both cases the functionalised materials retained the underlying pore structure of the unfunctionalised MCF material, with the spherical cell size of the APTES-MCF material seen to be reduced by ∼ 2 nm. The nature of the chemical attachment was confirmed by 29Si MAS NMR and differed in each case. APDMES-MCF showed a single additional peak over that of the framework ..