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Morphology control of mesoporous silica-carbon nanocomposites via phase separation of poly(furfuryl alcohol) and silica in the sol–gel synthesis

  • Original Paper: Fundamentals of sol-gel and hybrid materials processing
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Abstract

Due to the different rates of silica alkoxide hydrolysis and furfuryl alcohol polymerization, hydrophobic poly(furfuryl alcohol) network became incompatible with hydrophilic silica network, PFA-rich spheres were formed in the sol–gel process. The presence of the amphiphilic triblock copolymers P123 could help reduce the degree of phase separation. Slower drying rate, higher aging temperature, and higher C/SiO2 ratio accelerated the polymerization of FA and tend to aggregate more PFA spherical domains. However, in the sample with a fast increased viscosity, the temperature effect would be small since the PFA is hard to agglomerate, leading a homogenous mesoporous structure. If the C/SiO2 ratio is quite high to get a more hydrophobic system, there will be no phase separation too. The understanding of the phase separation of poly-furfuryl alcohol-silica systems offers great opportunities in controlling of the mesoporous carbon-silica nanocomposites.

Graphical Abstract

Schematic diagrams of the formation of PFA/silica hybrids: during the sol–gel process, once an alkoxide molecule is hydrolyzed, the resulting hydroxy groups make the molecule more polar, which are more hydrophilic. At the same time, FA polymerized to form PFA oligomers, which are hydrophobic. The incompatibility between these two precursors could be reduced by the amphiphilic triblock copolymers P123, because the long PEO chains are hydrophilic while the PPO block is hydrophobic. Either homogenous or phase separated PFA/silica/P123 can be obtained by tailoring the chemical ratio and the sol–gel process parameters.

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Acknowledgements

K.W. thanks the financial support of this work from the “the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (WUT: 2017IVA088). This work is also supported by State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing (Wuhan University of Technology). The authors acknowledge use of facilities within the Monash Center for Electron Microscopy for TEM and SEM.

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architectures, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, P.R. China

    Kun Wang

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Huanting Wang

  3. Department of Materials Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Yi-Bing Cheng

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Wang, K., Wang, H. & Cheng, YB. Morphology control of mesoporous silica-carbon nanocomposites via phase separation of poly(furfuryl alcohol) and silica in the sol–gel synthesis. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 82, 664–674 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-017-4358-3

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