Hierarchical Porous Silica Materials with a Trimodal Pore System Using Surfactant Templates

Porous silica exhibiting a hierarchically ordered trimodal pore system with a well-defined reverse opal microstructure and bimodal mesoporosity in the walls has been prepared by using polystyrene latex spheres, a novel block copolymer and an ionic liquid surfactant as templates. The resulting materials exhibit hierarchical order at three length scales (small mesopores: 2-3 nm; large mesopores: 11-12 nm; macropores: 360 nm).