Synthesis and characterization of SBA-15 macrospheres with hierarchical pore structure

The new macroscopic-scale SBA-15 spheres with diameter of 0.2-0.5 mm are prepared by a sol-gel method, in which the tetrabutylorthosilicate (TBOS) is used as silicon source and triblock copolymer (P123) and polyoxyethylene octylphenol ether (OP10)are used as templates. The resulting spherical samples are characterized by XRD, N ₂ adsorption-desorption, TEM and SEM methods. The results show that the inner structure of SBA-15 macrospheres has macroporous channels (0.5 μm) and mesoporous skeleton (4-5 nm). These SBA-15 macrospheres with the hierarchical pore structure demonstrate high absorption capacity for Emodin molecules.