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), N2 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°, 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.