Environmental friendly rapid mass production synthetic process of highly ordered nanometer sized mesoporous silica using a combination of acid–base and evaporation approach

An environmental friendly synthetic method for the rapid mass production of nanometer sized highly ordered mesoporous silica materials is presented. A systematic control in hydrolysis and polycondensation reactions during the synthesis is designed by employing combined acid–base and evaporation approach. The uniformed nanoscale silica particles with bulk average size 100–150 nm could be prepared with highly ordered mesoporous structure, while TEM results indicate that the nano particles even less than 70 nm are abundantly present. Also, the approach is environmentally friendly and minimize the production of waste wherein necessitates aqueous quenching and neutralization steps to remove an acid and washing out the surfactant is not required, and thus effectively reduces the emission of hazardous waste and pollutants and maintains economic viability of the process.