Highly ordered mesoporous silver, which exhibits well-defined mesopores, high surface area and pore volume, has been successfully obtained using a cubic mesoporous silica, KIT-6, with controlled surface hydrophobicity as the hard template.

Highly ordered mesoporous SnO 2 materials with residual silica species were successfully synthesized from a mesoporous silica template (SBA-15) via nano-replication and simple etching processes. A tin precursor, SnCl 2 $2H 2 O, was infiltrated spontaneously within the mesopores of the silica templates by melting the precursor at 353 K without using a solvent. After the heat-treatment of composite materials at 973 K under static air conditions, the controlled removal of silica templates using NaOH or HF solutions with different concentrations results in the successful preparation of mesoporous SnO 2 materials, where the amounts of residual silica species are in the range 0.9-17.4 wt%. The residual silica species induce a nano-propping effect enabling the mesoporous SnO 2 material (containing 6.0 wt% of silica species) to remain stable up to 973 K without any significant structural collapse. More importantly, the optimum amount of residual silica species (3.9-6.0 wt%) results in a dramatic reduction in capacity fading after prolonged charging-discharging cycles in Li-ion battery. The mesoporous SnO 2 material with 3.9 wt% of silica species still exhibits a large capacity (about 600 mAh g À1 ) after the 30 th cycle, which is probably because the residual silica species act as a physical barrier to suppress the aggregation of Sn clusters formed in the mesoporous SnO 2 materials during the reversible lithium storage.

Two kinds of ordered mesoporous silicas, SBA-15 and MSU-H, have been synthesized and functionalized by direct and post synthesis method to widen their various application possibilities. In this study, phenyltrimethoxysilane (PTMS), methacryloxy-methyltrimethoxysilane (MAMTMS), 2-(3,4-epoxycyclohexyl)ethyltrimethoxysilane (ECETMS), and N(beta-aminoethyl)-gamma-aminopropylmethyldimethoxysilane (AEAPMDMS) were used as a silane precursor for the functionalization. The post synthesis was more effective method to sustain ordered pore structure than the direct synthesis method under our experimental conditions. The surface area and pore size of mesoporous silica SBA-15 and MSU-H decreased through the functionalization process. FT-IR and XPS results confirmed the functionalized silane existence in the SBA-15/MAMTMS. These functional groups (vinyl, epoxide, and amine group) could be useful for various applications such as a linker of functional organic materials or active metal for heterogeneous catalysts. As a practical instance, rhodium immobilized on the aminated SBA-15 was investigated as a 1-octene hydroformylation.

Highly ordered mesoporous α-Mn2O3 with well-defined mesopores, high surface area, and high oxygen vacancy exhibits excellent catalytic activity toward H2O2 decomposition at low temperature.

Highly ordered mesoporous silver material was successfully synthesized from a mesoporous silica template (KIT-6) with 3-D channel structure using the nano-replication method. The effects of H2 or O2 pretreatments on the catalytic performance of the mesoporous silver were investigated using a temperature programmed CO oxidation technique in a fixed bed reactor. The mesoporous silver material that was pretreated with H2 exhibited an excellent catalytic activity compared to the as-prepared and O2-pretreated catalysts. Moreover, this present mesoporous silver material showed good catalytic stability. For the CO oxidation, the apparent activation energy of the H2-pretreated mesoporous silver catalyst was 61 ± 0.5 kJ mol -1 , which was also much lower than the as-prepared (132 ± 1.5 kJ mol -1) and O2-pretreated (124 ± 1.4 kJ mol -1 ) catalysts.