Fabrication of Dendrimer Porogen-Capsulated Mesoporous Silica via Sol-Gel Process of Silatrane Precursor

Mesoporous silica materials with ordered structures were prepared from a silatrane precursor and a poly(amido amine) dendrimer porogen under the dilute acidic condition via the sol-gel process. With decreasing the concentration of the dendrimer and adding much water, the production of undesirable amorphous silica was diminished and spherical particles with smooth surface became in majority Two kinds of crystal arrays were found to be produced in the silica particles. Although pore diameters were within sizes of shrank and extended dendrimers, center-to-center distance of template pores was different each other for two arrays, and the difference was close to a molecular length of silatrane. These results indicate that one molecule of silatrane constructed polysiloxane wall in the first array and origomeric silatranes formed wall in the second array. It was referred that the intrinsic (hydrogen bonding) character of hydroxyl groups in the hydrolyzed silatrane resulted in hydrogen bonded oligomers and reinforced the hydrogen bonding interaction with dendrimer porogen as well as electrostatic interaction, giving rise to two types of template arrays.