Novel organic−inorganic hybrid mesoporous materials have been synthesized, in which organic and inorganic oxide moieties are distributed homogeneously at the molecular level in the framework, forming a covalently bonded network. They are highly ordered at the mesoscale, with two- and three-dimensional hexagonal symmetries and well-defined external morphologies. Nitrogen adsorption measurements show a uniform pore-size distribution with pore diameters of 31 and 27 Å, and high surface areas of 750 and 1170 m2/g. The synthetic procedure to polymerize the organosilane monomer containing two trialkoxysilyl groups in the presence of surfactant can be applied to the synthesis of a variety of highly ordered organic−inorganic hybrid mesoporous materials.

Surfactant-mediated synthesis strategies are widely used to fabricate ordered mesoporous solids in the form of metal oxides, metals, carbon and hybrid organosilicas. These materials have amorphous pore walls, which could limit their practical utility. In the case of mesoporous metal oxides, efforts to crystallize the framework structure by thermal and hydrothermal treatments have resulted in crystallization of only a fraction of the pore walls. Here we report the surfactant-mediated synthesis of an ordered benzene-silica hybrid material; this material has an hexagonal array of mesopores with a lattice constant of 52.5 A, and crystal-like pore walls that exhibit structural periodicity with a spacing of 7.6 A along the channel direction. The periodic pore surface structure results from alternating hydrophilic and hydrophobic layers, composed of silica and benzene, respectively. We believe that this material is formed as a result of structure-directing interactions between the benzene-silica precursor molecules, and between the precursor molecules and the surfactants. We expect that other organosilicas and organo-metal oxides can be produced in a similar fashion, to yield a range of hierarchically ordered mesoporous solids with molecular-scale pore surface periodicity.

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