General and Facile Syntheses of Metal Silicate Porous Hollow Nanostructures

• Published in: Chemistry, an Asian journal an Asian journal, 2010-06, Vol.5 (6), p.1439-1444
• Main Authors: Zheng, Jun, Wu, Bing-Hui, Jiang, Zhi-Yuan, Kuang, Qin, Fang, Xiao-Liang, Xie, Zhao-Xiong, Huang, Rong-Bin, Zheng, Lan-Sun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: hydrothermal synthesis; microporous materials; nanostructures; silicates; template synthesis
• ISSN: 1861-4728; 1861-471X
• DOI: 10.1002/asia.200900561

Porous hollow nanostructures have attracted intensive interest owing to their unique structure and promising applications in various fields. A facile hydrothermal synthesis has been developed to prepare porous hollow nanostructures of silicate materials through a sacrificial‐templating process. The key factors, such as the concentration of the free metal cation and the alkalinity of the solution, are discussed. Porous hollow nanostructures of magnesium silicate, nickel silicate, and iron silicate have been successfully prepared by using SiO2 spheres as the template, as well as a silicon source. Several yolk–shell structures have also been fabricated by a similar process that uses silica‐coated composite particles as a template. As‐prepared mesoporous magnesium silicate hollow spheres showed an excellent ability to remove Pb2+ ions in water treatment owing to their large specific surface and unique structures. Effective syntheses: A general and facile hydrothermal process has been developed to prepare porous hollow nanostructures of silicate materials with a large specific surface area, as well as the yolk–shell structures with various different particle cores and metal silicate shells. The as‐prepared mesoporous magnesium silicate hollow nanostructures showed application for removal of Pb2+ ions in water treatment.