One-pot route to synthesize ordered mesoporous polymer/silica and carbon/silica nanocomposites using poly(dimethylsiloxane)-poly(ethylene oxide) (PDMS-PEO) as co-template

Ordered mesoporous polymer/silica and carbon/silica nanocomposites have been successfully prepared with triblock copolymer Pluronic F127 using diblock copolymer poly(dimethylsiloxane)-poly(ethylene oxide) (PDMS-PEO) as co-template. The structure of resulting mesoporous materials has been characterized by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and nitrogen-sorption measurements. The framework composition is also studied by the combination of thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), Raman spectra and wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WXRD). Experiments show that body-centered cubic (space group lm (3) over barm) mesoporous polymer/silica and carbon/silica nanocomposite with large pore size have been obtained. The incorporation of PDMS-PEO can reduce the framework shrinkage and dramatically enlarges the pore sizes of the materials without evident effect on the BET surface areas. This simple one-pot route provides a pathway for large-scale convenient synthesis of polymer/silica and carbon/silica nanocomposites. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.