Hierarchical Mesoporous Silica Fabricated from an ABC Triblock Terpolymer as a Single Template

Hierarchical mesoporous silicas containing two kinds of mesoporous size are successfully synthesized using the simple evaporation‐induced self‐assembly (EISA) strategy. Two blocks of hydrophobic segments (PE and PCL) in the poly(ethylene‐block‐ethylene oxide‐block‐ϵ‐caprolactone) (PE‐PEO‐PCL) triblock copolymer are involved in the two types of mesopore after calcination, the PE segment being attributed to the face‐centered cubic (fcc) morphology (spherical pores) and the PCL segment attributed to the tetragonal cylinder structure (cylindrical pores). The amphiphilic ABC‐type triblock copolymer as a single template is able to fabricate hierarchical mesoporous silica via the simple evaporation‐induced self‐assembly method. This poly(ethylene‐block‐ethylene oxide‐block‐ϵ‐caprolactone) (PE‐PEO‐PCL) triblock copolymer can be easily obtained through the simple ring opening polymerization method using the cheap and commercially available PE‐PEO block copolymer as a macroinitiator.