Formation of silica multilamellar vesicles through dual-templating

• Silica multilamellar vesicles were prepared with a dual-templating approach.
• Multilamellar vesicles served as the templates for the lamellar mesopores.
• Multilamellar vesicles served as the “nucleation” sites for growing silica/surfactant micelles.

Silica multilamellar vesicles were prepared with a dual-templating approach using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and 2-(perfluoro-n-octyl)ethanol (PFOE). The number of layers of the lamellar mesopores increased with increasing PFOE/CTAB molar ratio from 0.2:1 to 0.7:1. When the PFOE/CTAB molar ratios were 0.2:1 and 0.4:1, worm-like pore channels were identified near the outer surfaces, and shrunk lamellar silica shells were identified near the inner surfaces, of the shells of the vesicles. The formation of the mesopores was studied by taking TEM images after different reaction times. It was found that the multilamellar vesicles served as the templates for the lamellar mesopores and the “nucleation” sites for growing silica/surfactant micelles.