Physico-Chemical Characteristics of Novel Ordered Mesoporous Silicate, IITM-56: The Effect of Synthesis Parameters

In this study, an attempt has been made to investigate the influence of synthesis parameters like the reaction temperature, the surfactant-to-silica ratio and reaction time on the structural and textural properties of a novel orderedmesoporous silicate, designated as IITM-56. In order to understand the effect of different synthesis parameters, all the prepared materials were systematically characterized by various analytical, spectroscopic and imaging techniques such as XRD, BET, TEM, XRF, MAS-NMR, etc. It was deduced from these studies that the synthesis temperature influence greatly the structural order whereas both the Brij-56/TEOS molar ratio and reaction time found to influence textural properties significantly. However, under optimized experimental condition, we could achieve the targeted mesoporous silicate ( IITM-56) with desired characteristics, viz., moderate pore size (3.8 nm) and thicker walls (2.2 nm), along with expected amounts of silanol groups and highly stable framework structure.