Preparation and structure characterization of ordered cubic Zr-doped mesoporous silica by EISA method

Highly ordered cubic Zr-doped mesoporous silica was directly prepared with Evaporation-Induced Self Assembly method (EISA) with triblock copolymers (Pluronic PI 23) as the structure-directing agents. The mesoporous material was characterized via small-angle powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and nitrogen adsorption. The results show that the product has a face-centered cubic structure with space group of Fd3m. N2 sorption revealed that the Zr-doped mesoporous silica has not only ordered structures, but also high surface area (550 m2/g), large pore volume (0.66 cm3/g), as well as uniform pore size (4.0 nm).