The potential of inorganic nanomaterials as reservoirs for healing agents is presented here. Mesoporous silica (SBA-15) and TiO2 nanotubes (TNTs) were synthesized. Both epoxy-encapsulated TiO2 nanotubes and amine-immobilized mesoporous silica were incorporated into epoxy and subsequently coated on a carbon steel substrate. The encapsulated TiO2 nanotubes was quantitatively estimated using a 'de...

In this paper mesoporous SnO2 nanospheres with an average diameter of about 83 nm, composed of many tiny primary particles ( 10 nm) and holes, are synthesized on a large scale by a simple hydrothermal route. The as-prepared mesoporous SnO2 nanospheres were uniformly coated with carbon by a further hydrothermal treatment in glucose aqueous solution. As anode materials for lithium-ion batteries, ...

Free-standing aligned carbon nanotubes have previously been grown above 700 degreesC on mesoporous silica embedded with iron nanoparticles. Here, carbon nanotubes aligned over areas up to several square centimeters were grown on nickel-coated glass below 666 degreesC by plasma-enhanced hot filament chemical vapor deposition. Acetylene gas was used as the carbon source and ammonia gas was used a...

Mesoporous carbonaceous materials have outstanding potential in many different applications such as adsorption, medicine and catalysis. We have recently reported the synthesis of a new form of mesoporous carbon, named Starbon®, obtained after low temperature carbonization of expanded starch. Such starch-derived mesoporous materials have several tunable properties including surface energies (ran...

We report a simple two-step procedure that uses anthracene, a cheap polyaromatic hydrocarbon with low melting point, as a molecular precursor to produce carbon nanoforms (CNFs). First, we describe the chemical synthesis of graphite from the fusion of anthracene rings at relatively low temperature (520 °C) followed by cyclodehydrogenation. Next, we extend this protocol to the synthesis of CNFs b...

Mesoporous transition metal nitrides are interesting materials for energy conversion and storage applications due to their conductivity and durability. We present ordered mixed titanium-niobium (8:2, 1:1) nitrides with gyroidal network structures synthesized from triblock terpolymer structure-directed mixed oxides. The materials retain both macroscopic integrity and mesoscale ordering despite h...

Performance of low temperature fuel cells depends critically on the nanostructures of the material components in the electrodes and membranes. Some studies are reported here for 1) mixed metal nanoparticles supported on mesoporous carbon and 2) modification of nanopores of Nafion via in-situ polymerization of furfuryl alcohol. The anodic oxidation of small organic molecules such as alcohols in ...

We report herein a straightforward and label-free approach to prepare luminescent mesoporous silica nanoparticles. We found that calcination at 400 °C can grant mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles with strong fluorescence of great photo- and chemical stability. The luminescence is found to originate from the carbon dots generated from the calcination, rather than the defects in the silica mat...

A novel synthesis method for ordered mesoporous carbons is presented. The inverse replication of a silica template was achieved using the carbonization of sucrose within mesoporous KIT-6. Instead of liquid acid etching, as in classical nanocasting, a novel dry chlorine etching procedure for template removal is presented for the first time. The resultant ordered mesostructured carbon material ou...

Well-ordered mesoporous silicate films were prepared by infusion and selective condensation of silicon alkoxides within microphase-separated block copolymer templates dilated with supercritical carbon dioxide. Confinement of metal oxide deposition to specific subdomains of the preorganized template yields high-fidelity, three-dimensional replication of the copolymer morphology, enabling the pre...