Characteristics of vanadium-substituted mesoporous silica with wormhole framework structure: effects of vanadium content

Vanadium-substituted wormhole framework structure (V-WMS) mesoporous silicas (V-WMS) with various Si/V ratios in the range of 15 and 200 were prepared at ambient temperature by neutral surfactant templating pathway. The materials were synthesized by using dodecylamine as a template and tetraethylorthosilicate as a silicon source. They were characterized by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), N-2 adsorption-desorption, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier-transform infrared absorption spectroscopy (FT-IR) and ultraviolet-visible absorption spectroscopy. V-WMS samples shown characters of larger framework wall thickness, small crystallite domain sizes, and complementary textural mesoporosities in comparison with M41S materials. These mesoporous V-WMS samples exhibited irregularly shaped mesoscale fundamental particles which aggregated into larger particles. They also demonstrated better thermal stability than MCM-41. An absorption band of FT-IR at ca. 960 cm(-1) was assigned to the vibration of Si-O-V linkages. These samples also showed one strong UV-visible absorbance with overlapping maxima at about 255 nm. The results show that vanadium was incorporated into the structure of wormhole mesoporous silica (WMS). However, for V-WMS with high vanadium content (Si/V < 25), a broad shoulder in XRD pattern was observed at about 3-4 degrees, suggesting the presence of impurity phase of vanadium species in the sample. The efforts in preparing V-WMS specimens by neutral-template synthesis route had led to new mesoporous silica molecular sieves with catalytically active vanadium centers.