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Santa BarbaraAmorphous-15 (SBA-15) is aninteresting mesoporous silica material with highly ordered nanopores and alarge surface area. Due to its unique properties, this material has been widelyemployed in many areas. This study aimed to predict the number of nanopores pergram of SBA-15 material based on an optimum value of surfactant addition at thedesired number of nanopores. For this purpose, SBA-15 was synthesized via asol-gel process using tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS, Si(OC2H5)4)as a precursor and pluronic P123 triblock copolymer surfactant (EO20PO70EO20,EO = ethylene oxide, PO = propylene oxide) as a template. There were fivedifferent surfactant concentrations, namely 0.35, 2.50, 2.70, 3.00, and 3.30millimoles, used with a fixed concentration of TEOS. The characterization wasperformed using small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS), adsorption-desorption(BET), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results showed that thesurfactant concentration did not affect the crystal structure, although anincrease in the surfactant concentration linearly correlated with an increasein the surface area. The shape and size of the pore diameter tends to beapproximately 3 nm, as characterized using BET adsorption-desorption. Theoptimum concentration of surfactant for the formation of mesoporous SBA-15material was 2.70 millimoles. The value obtained in this study was inaccordance with the calculated value, indicating that the theoreticalcalculations can be used to experimentally predict the number of pores. |
