Preparation and Physisorption Characterization of d-Glucose-Templated Mesoporous Silica Sol−Gel Materials

The synthesis of mesoporous silica materials has been achieved with d-glucose as a nonsurfactant pore-forming agent in the sol−gel reactions of tetraethyl orthosilicate under basic or near neutral (pH 6) conditions. Regardless of the pH values of the medium, transparent and monolithic glucose-containing silica gels could be obtained. d-Glucose was removed by water extraction to afford silica materials with high specific surface area of ∼800 m2/g, pore volume of ∼0.5 cm3/g, and narrow pore distribution with BJH pore diameter of 3.2−3.5 nm, indicative of the mesoporosity. As the glucose concentration is increased in the synthesis, these pore parameters generally increase, and the N2 sorption isotherms gradually transform from reversible type I to type IV-like isotherms with H2 hysteresis. At low glucose concentrations (