Synthesis, characterization and application of novel bicontinuous mesoporous silica with hierarchical pore structure

Bicontinuous mesoporous silica with hierarchical pore structure was obtained by self-assembly approach under biphasic oil–water system. The silica consists of two kinds of interconnecting pores with sizes of ca. 10 nm and ca. 40 nm, and has a surface area of 711 m2 g−1. By introducing the synthesized silica as matrix, novel composite gel electrolytes are fabricated, which show high ionic conductivity. The composite gel electrolyte could be used in both dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and lithium battery. Our results demonstrate that the quasi-solid state DSSC based on the novel composite electrolyte exhibits an encouraging overall efficiency of 4.31% at room temperature, and the lithium battery with sound capacity and capacity retention is also achieved.