Rapid temperature-assisted sonochemical synthesis of mesoporous silica SBA-15

A rapid synthesis route to synthesize ordered mesoporous silica SBA-15 in a short time via ultrasonic irradiation without hydrothermal treatment was reported. The present synthesis route effectively reduces the total synthesis time from days to a few hours, which is much shorter than the conventional SBA-15 synthesis methods. The synthesis time and temperature during sonication have been systematically varied in order to investigate their influence on the structural ordering of the materials. The resultant materials exhibited a hexagonally ordered mesostructure with high surface area over 560 m2/g, pore volume over 0.6 cm3/g and large pore diameter in the range of 4.1–4.9 nm. This study shows that the sonochemical mediated synthesis of SBA-15 has several advantages: an easy way to control the temperature and time of the synthesis and significant reduction in the total synthesis time. By varying the temperature and time of the synthesis, the structural properties of the SBA-15 materials can be finely tuned.