Cation alkyl polyglycoside for preparation of mesoporous silica and direct synthesis of mesoporous carbon

Using industrial grade cation alkyl polyglycoside as structure-directing agent, a new low-cost route has been developed to prepare ordered mesoporous silica through inorganic-organic self-assembling in weak basic aqueous solution. The XRD patterns, TEM images and the corresponding BET analysis show that it has a worm-like mesostructure with narrow pore size distribution centered at 3.6 nm. Moreover, alkyl polyglucoside can be used as carbon precursor, and the direct pyrolysis of silica/cation alkyl polyglucoside composite with trace amount H2SO4 as catalyst can lead to the formation of mesoporous carbon material, which shows the excellent performance in adsorbing fuchsine from aqueous solution. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.