Synthesis of large-pore periodic mesoporous organosilica

Periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMO) materials with large pores have been successfully synthesized using a combinational strategy by decreasing both the synthesis temperature and acidity. Herein, we use a tri-block copolymer EO106PO70EO106 [Pluronic F127, where EO is poly(ethylene oxide) and PO is poly(propylene oxide)] as the template, bis(trimethoxysilyl)ethane (BTME) as a silica source and 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene (TMB) as a pore expander. The PMO material synthesized in this approach has a face-centered cubic (fcc) structure. When the synthesis temperature is 0 °C and the acidity is 0.1 M HCl, the pore diameter of the PMO material reaches 33.6 nm, which is the largest among cubic PMO materials to our knowledge.