Molecular transport into mesostructured silica thin films : electrochemical monitoring and comparison between p6m, P63/mmc, and Pm3n structures.

By M. Etienne, A. Quach, D. Grosso, L. Nicole, C. Sanchez, Alain Walcarius. 2007

163 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Ellipso-porosimetry and electrochemical techniques were used to characterize porosity and molecular transport into mesostructured porous silica thin films displaying various structures. The films have been prepared by the evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) method using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as the template. According to previous investigations, the structure of the film can be controlled by the fine adjustment of the CTAB concentration and relative humidity during the dip-coating process. Films displaying p6m (2D hexagonal), P63/mmc (3D hexagonal), and Pm3n (cubic) nanoporous structures have been obtained (as revealed by XRD and TEM) and characterized after template removal by ethanol washing. Characterization of the film porosity has been performed on the basis of water adsorption−desorption cycles and ellipso-porosimetry measurements. They revealed significant contraction of the mesoporous structure when contacting water molecules, leading to a decrease in the pore diameter for bot...

Subfields: Inorganic Chemistry, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a3476bd3d8f3c0ed29ec377bf5d741a5faf86f20