Supramolecular Templating of Thermally Stable Crystalline Mesoporous Metal Oxides Using Nanoparticulate Precursors

A supramolecular templating approach to the preparation of crystalline mesoporous metal oxides using inorganic colloidal nanoparticles as building blocks is presented. The nanoparticles are used to form a mesostructured material with a triblock copolymer surfactant as the templating agent and with a tungstate salt as the “binding” agent. Tungstated zirconium oxide produced in this manner was found to be highly thermally stable (in excess of 600 °C) while maintaining mesoporosity and a high surface area. Other mesoporous oxides were produced using zirconium salts, titania nanoparticles, and aluminum polycations, illustrating the flexibility of this “nanoparticle/surfactant templating” route.