Synthesis of mesoporous metal oxides by structure replication: Strategies of impregnating porous matrices with metal salts

Various measures to optimise the impregnation of mesoporous CMK-3 carbon and SBA-15 silica matrices with metal nitrates for the synthesis of mesoporous metal oxides by structure replication are investigated. The effect of surface modification of the matrix pores, the choice of a solvent with suitable polarity, and the concentration of the metal nitrate solution are studied in detail. The efficiency of pore loading is monitored by nitrogen physisorption measurements. The creation of polar functions at the pore surface of CMK-3 carbon is shown to increase the impregnation efficiency substantially while maximizing the pore wall polarity of SBA-15 silica by increasing the amount of free silanol groups does not have any significant impact. The choice of a less polar solvent (THF instead of water) has a positive effect on the wettability of CMK-3 carbon in the first impregnation cycle but turns out to be disadvantageous in the second cycle; a similar trend is observed for variation of the metal salt concentration.