Morphosynthesis of porous silica from biocompatible templates

[Display omitted] •Inspiration from morphogenesis to design synthetic porous silica materials.•Biomimetics combining sol–gel process and surfactant-system templating pathway.•Oil incorporation into biocompatible Kolliphor surfactant systems: control of porosity.•Swollen micelles and fine emulsions template for large mesoporous silica.•Macropores imprints of the oil droplets of the concentrated emulsions. Taking inspiration from morphogenesis, synthetic porous silica materials have been synthesized through rational designs combining the sol–gel process and the surfactant templating method. Materials have been prepared from biocompatible systems using kolliphor as surfactant. The effect of Miglyol and Myristate solubilization in the Kolliphor/water system was first investigated in detail. The phase diagram proved that only a weak fraction of these oils (≈1wt.%) can be incorporated into the hydrophobic core of the micelles (L1). Results also show that whatever the liquid crystal phases [direct hexagonal (H1) and lamellar (Lα)] the swelling effect take place upon addition of oil. Moreover, at low oil concentration oil-in-water fine emulsions are formulated, while at high oil concentration, oil-in-water concentrated emulsion are formulated. Starting from the various systems, porous silica materials were then synthesized. Results obtained by SAXS and nitrogen adsorption–desorption analysis show that Miglyol and Myristate can expand the mesopore size. The variations of the pore diameter have been related to the solubilization properties of the oil in the surfactant. In addition, macroporous silica could be design by using concentrated emulsions as template. This work demonstrates that synthetic silica materials can be obtained by mimic of natural processes.