Hollow mesoporous silica spheres synthesized with cationic and anionic mixed surfactant as templates

• Hollow mesoporous silica spheres (HMSSs) of 200–300 nm have been synthesized according to a modified Stober method at room temperature.
• CTAB/SDS mixed surfactant was adopted as dual templates.
• The possible formation mechanism of HMSSs using mixed surfactant templates has been discussed according to vesicle template approach.

Hollow mesoporous silica spheres (HMSSs) with ordered mesoporous and uniform size distribution of 200–300 nm were synthesized using mixed surfactant of cationic cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and anionic sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as templates at room temperature. Our work provides a facile approach to synthesize hollow mesoporous silica spheres by a modified Stober method. The results showed that the BET surface area is high up to 951 m2 g−1 and the average pores diameter is 2.4 nm. The possible formation mechanism of HMSSs using mixed surfactant templates was discussed by vesicle template approach.

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