Synthesis and characterization of colloidal MCM-41

A procedure was developed which enables to obtain a mesoporous molecular sieve with uniform particles, whose size ranges from 100 nm to 1 mum. It is based on the precipitation from a homogeneous water solution of sodium metasilicate and cationic surfactant due to acidification achieved by the hydrolysis of an ester of acetic acid. By varying the decisive processing parameters, viz. the reaction temperature and the concentration of salts, particle size can be changed continuously without deteriorating the mesopore structure and changing the size of mesopores. The decrease in particle size causes the conversion of the originally internal surface to external one with accompanying decrease in mesopore volume. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.