Synthesis of Mesoporous Silicates with Controllable Pore Size Using Surfactant Ruthenium(II) Complexes as Templates

Surfactant–ruthenium(II) complexes that display lyotropic liquid-crystalline behavior have been prepared. Their utility as templates for the synthesis of mesoporous silicates that contain RuO2 particles in their channels is demonstrated (see Figure). It is found that by simply altering the surfactant chain length the pore size of the metal-containing silicates can be altered in a controllable manner.