Poly(glycidyl methacrylate)-block-poly(ϵ-caprolactone)-block-poly(glycidyl methacrylate) Triblock Copolymer: Synthesis and Use as Mesoporous Silica Porogen

In this contribution, we reported the preparation of mesoporous silica with a reactive block copolymer as the porogen via sol-gel process. Firstly, poly(glycidyl methacrylate)-block-poly(ϵ-caprolactone)-block-poly(glycidyl methacrylate) triblock copolymer (PGMA-b-PCL-b-PGMA) was synthesized with the combination of ring-opening polymerization (ROP) and reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. Thereafter, the triblock copolymer was functionalized via its reaction with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) to afford a new reactive block copolymer bearing triethoxysilane moieties. The latter was employed to perform the inter-component sol-gel reactions with tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) to obtain the organic-inorganic composites with various compositions. The organic-inorganic composites were subsequently used as the precursors to obtain the mesoporous silica materials via pyrolysis at elevated temperatures. The surface-area Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurements indicate that the materials of mesoporous silica with adjustable porosity have been successfully obtained.