Dalton Transactions Blog

In this HOT article, Wu and Yamauchi et al., reported the synthesis of highly ordered mesoporous alumina thin films existing both as P6₃/mmc and Fm-3m mesostructures by using triblock copolymer Pluronic P123 as a structure-directing agent and their framework crystallization to γ-alumina phase at 1000 °C. During the crystallization process, large uniaxial shrinkage occurred along the direction perpendicular to the substrate with the retention of horizontal mesoscale periodicity, thereby forming vertically oriented nanopillars on the film surface.

The well-ordered arrangement of the nanopillars can produce vertical mesoporosity in the films.This porosity can be regarded as “inverse mesospace” of a 2D hexagonal structure with “mesochannels” running perpendicular to the substrate.  This vertical mesoporosity in films is very exciting as it can enhance pore accessibility broadening the potential applications of these already much studied mesoporous metal oxides.

Read more about these exciting developments for FREE until 22nd June at:

Synthesis of highly ordered mesoporous alumina thin films and their framework crystallization to gamma-alumina phase
Xiangfen Jiang, Hamid Oveisi, Yoshihiro Nemoto, Norihiro Suzuki, Kevin C.-W. Wu and Yusuke Yamauchi
Dalton Trans., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1DT10166H