Fabrication of Hierarchical Channel Wall in Al-MCM-41 Mesoporous Materials to Enhance Their Adsorptive Capability: Why and How?

To overcome the inefficiency of mesoporous materials in the adsorption of small molecules, this article reports the effort how to create hierarchical channel wall in Al-MCM-41 and more important, how to distinguish the contribution of the newly formed micropores in adsorption by the mesoporous materials. Fabrication of hierarchical channel wall is realized through extracting framework aluminum of sample by acid leach to create micropores and defects, providing the fine geometric confinement toward tiny targets. The influence of original Al content of Al-MCM-41 on the controlled dealumination was studied, and X-ray diffraction, N 2 adsorption−desorption, 27 Al and 29 Si MAS NMR, Fourier transform IR techniques were employed to characterize the resulting samples. Besides, volatile nitrosamine N -nitrosopyrrolidine (NPYR) was chosen as a probe to assess the adsorption of the resulting samples. Hierarchical channel wall in Al-MCM-41 significantly increased its ability to trap NPYR, and for the first time the adsorptive contribution of newly formed micropores and defects in the mesoporous silica was distinguished by the instantaneous adsorption under the carrier gas with different flow rate, which is beneficial for developing new functional materials to protect environment.