A mesoporous material (or super nanoporous ) is a nanoporous material containing

pore Pore may refer to: Biology Animal biology and microbiology * Sweat pore, an anatomical structure of the skin of humans (and other mammals) used for secretion of sweat * Hair follicle, an anatomical structure of the skin of humans (and other ...

s with diameters between 2 and 50 nm, according to

IUPAC The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...

nomenclature. For comparison, IUPAC defines

microporous material A microporous material is a material containing pores with typical sizes less than 2 nm in diameter. Microporous materials, like mesoporous materials, are a subset of nanoporous materials. Examples of microporous materials include zeolites an ...

as a material having pores smaller than 2 nm in diameter and

macroporous material In soil, macropores are defined as cavities that are larger than 75 μm. Functionally, pores of this size host preferential soil solution flow and rapid transport of solutes and colloids. Macropores increase the hydraulic conductivity of soi ...

as a material having pores larger than 50 nm in diameter. Typical mesoporous materials include some kinds of

silica Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , commonly found in nature as quartz. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one of the most complex and abundant f ...

and

alumina Aluminium oxide (or aluminium(III) oxide) is a chemical compound of aluminium and oxygen with the chemical formula . It is the most commonly occurring of several aluminium oxides, and specifically identified as aluminium oxide. It is commonly ...

that have similarly-sized mesopores. Mesoporous oxides of

niobium Niobium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Nb (formerly columbium, Cb) and atomic number 41. It is a light grey, crystalline, and Ductility, ductile transition metal. Pure niobium has a Mohs scale of mineral hardness, Mohs h ...

tantalum Tantalum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ta and atomic number 73. It is named after Tantalus, a figure in Greek mythology. Tantalum is a very hard, ductility, ductile, lustre (mineralogy), lustrous, blue-gray transition ...

titanium Titanium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

zirconium Zirconium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Zr and atomic number 40. First identified in 1789, isolated in impure form in 1824, and manufactured at scale by 1925, pure zirconium is a lustrous transition metal with a greyis ...

cerium Cerium is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Ce and atomic number 58. It is a hardness, soft, ductile, and silvery-white metal that tarnishes when exposed to air. Cerium is the second element in the lanthanide series, and while it ...

and

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

have also been reported. However, the flagship of mesoporous materials is mesoporous carbon, which has direct applications in energy storage devices. Mesoporous carbon has porosity within the mesopore range and this significantly increases the specific surface area. Another very common mesoporous material is

activated carbon Activated carbon, also called activated charcoal, is a form of carbon commonly used to filter contaminants from water and air, among many other uses. It is processed (activated) to have small, low-volume pores that greatly increase the surface ar ...

which is typically composed of a carbon framework with both mesoporosity and microporosity depending on the conditions under which it was synthesized. According to IUPAC, a mesoporous material can be disordered or ordered in a mesostructure. In crystalline inorganic materials, mesoporous structure noticeably limits the number of lattice units, and this significantly changes the solid-state chemistry. For example, the battery performance of mesoporous electroactive materials is significantly different from that of their bulk structure. A procedure for producing mesoporous materials (silica) was patented around 1970, and methods based on the

Stöber process The Stöber process is a chemical process used to prepare silica () particles of controllable and monodisperse, uniform size for applications in materials science. It was pioneering when it was reported by Werner Stöber and his team in 1968, and ...

from 1968 were still in use in 2015. It went almost unnoticed and was reproduced in 1997. Mesoporous silica

nanoparticle A nanoparticle or ultrafine particle is a particle of matter 1 to 100 nanometres (nm) in diameter. The term is sometimes used for larger particles, up to 500 nm, or fibers and tubes that are less than 100 nm in only two directions. At ...

s (MSNs) were independently synthesized in 1990 by researchers in Japan. They were later produced also at Mobil Corporation laboratories and named Mobil Crystalline Materials, or MCM-41. The initial synthetic methods did not allow to control the quality of the secondary level of porosity generated. It was only by employing

quaternary ammonium cations In organic chemistry, quaternary ammonium cations, also known as quats, are positively-charged polyatomic ions of the structure , where R is an alkyl group, an aryl group or organyl group. Unlike the ammonium ion () and the primary, secondary, or ...

and silanization agents during the synthesis that the materials exhibited a true level of hierarchical porosity and enhanced textural properties. Mesoporous materials have been also produced in the form of thin films via evaporation induced self-assembly, in different organized mesostructures and compositions. Since then, research in this field has steadily grown. Notable examples of prospective industrial applications are

catalysis Catalysis () is the increase in rate of a chemical reaction due to an added substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed by the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recycles quick ...

, sorption, gas sensing, batteries, ion exchange,

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...

, and

photovoltaics Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commerciall ...

. In the field of catalysis, zeolites is an emerging topic where the mesoporosity as a function of the catalyst is studied to improve its performance for use in

Fluid catalytic cracking Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is the conversion process used in petroleum refineries to convert the high-boiling point, high-molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of petroleum (crude oils) into gasoline, alkene gases, and other petroleum produc ...

. It should be taken into account that this mesoporosity refers to the classification of nanoscale porosity, and mesopores may be defined differently in other contexts; for example, mesopores are defined as cavities with sizes in the range 30 μm–75 μm in the context of porous aggregations such as soil.

References

{{Commons category, Mesoporous materials Materials Porous media

See also

References