Porous and nanoscale architectures of inorganic materials have become essential in energy and catalysis applications. The ability to control the morphology is crucial as it determines the transport characteristics and device performance. Fine-tuning of key architectural features such as the inorganic wall thickness independently has remained tenuous despite the availability of a range of block copolymer self-assembly methods. We report novel and robust solution processing guidelines that enable isomorphic nanostructures with tunable wall-thickness for a range of inorganic materials. Poly(ethylene oxide-b-hexyl acrylate) block polymers was synthesized as a structure directing agent to demonstrate the key solution design criteria. The high Flory-Huggins interaction parameter, χ, of the two blocks and proper solution conditions leads to the kinetic entrapment of persistent micelles. Use of different inorganic loadings generates tunable isomorphic architectures where the inorganic wall-thickness can be controlled with constant pore size. In addition, by varying the polymer molar mass and water content, smooth transition from mesoporous materials to macroporous materials was achieved. The processing guidelines were elaborated with three inorganic systems, including Nb2O5, WO3, and SiO2. This versatile method enabled us to produce the thickest inorganic walls reported for micelle coassembliesas well as the access to highly crystalline porous transition metal oxides with high thermal stability.

Robust and tunable inorganic nanostructures from PEO-b-PHA structure-directing agent

251st National Meeting (2016)

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