A simple method to directly synthesize Al-SBA-15 mesoporous materials with different Al contents

Aluminum-incorporated SBA-15 materials with well-ordered structure, high surface area and narrow pore-size distribution were directly prepared by an evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) method. Our synthesis method with two unique points of no mineral acid and hydrothermal treatment, is very simple, efficient and energy-saving by using the corresponding chloride precursors which can generate proper acidity in the synthesis solutions. The mesopores ordering degree of Al-SBA-15 materials decreased when the Al/Si atomic ratio was either larger than 0.08 or smaller than 0.05. The powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 sorption and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) characterizations show that the resultant materials have well ordered hexagonal mesostructures. The 27Al magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR characterizations show that most of the aluminum ions incorporate into the SBA-15 framework. The thermal analysis was used to probe the interaction between the silica species and copolymer templates.