Carbon-13 CP MAS NMR study on structures of octadecyl chains influenced by co-presence of 3-aminopropyl chains on SBA-15

Functionalized SAB-15 samples by octadecyltrimethoxysilane (OTC) were studied by C-13 magic angle spinning (MAS) cross polarization (CP) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. In the SBA-15 sample fully functionalized by 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APS) and OTC in 1:1 molar ratio, octadecyl chains were observed to have, on average, more trans conformation than those in the SBA-15 samples fully modified by OTC only. Our results confirm that long chain molecules tend to organize themselves better in the co-presence of short chain molecules on the surface of mesoporous materials by packing of the different length chains in an interdigitized fashion even when the short chains are long enough to have three carbons and a functional group at the ends. In addition, our results indicate that solid-state 13C CP MAS NMR spectroscopy is a simple and non-destructive method to probe the molecular structures of the domains composed of long alkyl chains.