Synthesis of mono-dispersed mesoporous silica spheres with highly ordered hexagonal regularity using conventional alkyltrimethylammonium halide as a surfactantElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available: time courses of particle size and scattering intensity of samples obtained with TEOS and C16TMACl. See http://www.rsc.org/suppdata/jm/b3/b313712k/

Mono-dispersed mesoporous silica spheres with highly ordered hexagonal regularity were obtained with tetramethoxysilane (TMOS)–alkyltrimethylammonium chloride–methanol–water–sodium hydroxide. Just by changing the methanol ratio in the solvent, mono-dispersed particles were obtained with C14TMACl, C16TMACl and C18TMACl as surfactants under the same reactant concentrations. The adsorption properties of the samples were specific surface areas of 1150–1200 m2 g−1 and pore volumes of 0.60–0.81 cm3 g−1. Work is underway to explore new potential applications of these materials which possess both mono-dispersion characteristics and ordered mesoporous regularity with various mean pore sizes and particle diameters.