Preparation of Hollow Silica Microspheres with Nanoporous Shells by Soft Template Method

A kind of new hollow silica microspheres were proposed in experiment, which are fabricatted by a fast hydrolysis and condensation of tetraethyl orthosilicate taking place around multi-lamellar octylamine vesicles. The morphology of the vesicles is then fixed by a quick gelation process, resulting in hollow organo-silica spheres. After the removal of the template by calcination, nanopores are formed in the hollow shells. The results show that the synthesized hollow silica microspheres have smooth surface and dispersed well£®There are bimodal nanopores in the hollow silica microspheres, with a diameter of 2.1 nm and 0.62nm for the mesopores and micropores respectively, giving a specific surface area of 1123m2/g and a pore volume of 0.6291mL/g£®