Synthesis of hollow mesoporous silica spheres with radially aligned mesochannels and tunable textural properties

Hollow mesoporous silica spheres with radially aligned mesochannels were fabricated successfully by combining hard and soft templating methods. The microstructure, textural properties and the structure regulation approach of the hollow spheres were investigated. The results show that the hollow spheres are perfectly spherical, monodisperse, and present ordered mesochannels with pore size of ~2.20 nm, high specific surface area and high pore volume. The textural properties of the hollow mesoporous silica spheres can be tuned by adjusting the alkali-treatment process of the carbon spheres and the concentration of the inorganic source.