title: Hard-sphere packing and icosahedral assembly in the formation of mesoporous materials.
abstract: We report the synthesis and characterization of a novel mesoporous material with a face-centered cubic (fcc) symmetry and intrinsic bimodal pores. Moreover, an icosahedral (ICO) mesostructure with both meso- and macroscale 5-fold symmetry is observed. We propose a hard-sphere packing (HSP) mechanism for the formation of mesoporous materials by assuming preformed robust surfactant/silicate composite micelles being hard spheres. In comparison to the conventional liquid crystal templating (LCT) or cooperative self-assembly (CSA) mechanism, our contribution provides an important advancement of knowledge in the study of mesostructured materials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, PR China.
authors.forename: Jiawei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Xufeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Dongyuan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Gao Qing
authors.initials: GQ
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Chengzhong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yu