The synthetic approaches, properties, classification and heavy metal adsorption applications of periodic mesoporous organosilicas

Periodic Mesoporous Organosilica (nano)materials (bulk PMO and PMO NPs), one of the most advanced organic–inorganic hybrid silica materials, are increasingly studied in recent years. Compared with other hybrid silica materials, PMOs have some unique advantages, such as robust porous channels, organic–inorganic framework, tunable pore size arrangement, biocompatibility, high organic contents and easy functionalization. They have attracted growing interest of study in some newly emerged fields including biology, biomedicine and catalysis. On the other hand, heavy metals in wastewaters severely pollute the environment and thus do harm to the aquatic ecosystems as well as human health, which is considered an urgent issue to be solved in modern society. It is very meaningful to use PMO materials to realize the effective detection of heavy metal ions and to solve their recovery. Herein, this review focuses on the synthetic strategies of PMO adsorbents as well as their performance and mechanism of adsorption for the heavy metals.