Surfactant-templated mesoporous aluminophosphate-based materials and the recent progress

This review provides an overview of surfactant-templated mesoporous materials whose main frameworks are composed of aluminophosphates (AlPOs). Recent developments of the synthetic strategies are also summarized. Potential applications of mesoporous AlPO-based materials are also mentioned. The synthetic strategies to control the mesostructures and the relation to the structures of AlPO frameworks are discussed. Lamellar and hexagonal mesostructured AlPOs reported so far can be classified as crystalline and non-crystalline materials, respectively. Although hexagonal mesostructured AlPOs can be converted to mesoporous materials with amorphous walls, it is difficult to maintain the mesostructural orderings of hexagonal phases completely after the removal of surfactants. Due to strong requirements for obtaining ordered mesostructured AlPOs by further improvement of synthetic methods, the synthesis of highly ordered mesoporous AlPO-based materials has been realized through block copolymer templating, organic modification technique, and so on.