Effect of ball milling on the structural and textural features of MCM-41 mesoporous material

•MCM-41 amorphization is accelerated by increasing the milling time.•Sharp crystallinity loss is obtained on milling the MCM-41 for 1–2 h.•Milling time increase is accompanied by sharp decrease in the textural parameters.•Mechanical milling had major effects on hydrophilicity decrease of MCM-41.

This paper reports on the ball-milling process and its influence on the structural, textural and morphological features of mesoporous MCM-41 material. MCM-41 and the as-milled products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), N2-adsorption, a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and a thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The XRD showed that the mechanical treatment of MCM-41 in a ball mill leads to a gradual crystallinity loss with time until 2 h, and complete crystallinity loss was observed after 4 h of ball milling. N2 sorption measurements revealed a sharp surface area decrease as well as mesoporosity loss accompanying the milling process. The FE-SEM investigation demonstrated severe damage of the spherical morphology of MCM-41 upon milling for 8 h. Moreover, it was found that these structural, textural and morphological changes strongly affected the water content of the milled MCM-41 material.

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