Bottom-up tailoring of nonionic surfactant-templated mesoporous silica nanomaterials by a novel composite liquid crystal templating mechanism

A bottom-up tailoring methodology was developed to successfully regulate the morphology and size of novel composite micellar bunches with liquid crystal mesophases self-assembled from multivalent metal ions (Zr^IV) and nonionic surfactants (P123), and subsequently the morphologies and dimensions of liquid crystal-templated mesoporous silica nanomaterials (MSNs). The composite micellar bunches with liquid crystal mesophases were directly evidenced by TEM imaging and DLS measurements. By virtue of these morphologically and dimensionally controllable composite micellar bunches as templates, SBA-15 MSNs were well tailored from long nanorods of 645 × 245 nm to short nanorods of 360 × 210 nm, and even to nanoplates of 310 × 740 nm and subsphaeroidal nanoparticles of 230 nm.