Producing ordered mesoporous materials (OMMs) from cheap, commodity precursors and practical processing methods is vital for realizing their full potential as an important class of nanotechnology. OMMs have demonstrated great potential in multitudes of applications including energy storage, adsorption/separations, and drug delivery, but several limitations in conventional production methods limit them from being applied at large scales. Specifically, templating-based methods can require expensive precursors, the consumption of large amounts of volatile solvent, and are typically restricted to pore sizes achieved through commercial templating agents. This work presents a versatile platform for the production of mesoporous polymer, carbon, and silica using nanostructured thermoplastic elastomers as precursors, and simple processing techniques. Specifically, sulfonation-induced crosslinking is leveraged to crosslink the majority polyolefin phase of the thermoplastic elastomer, ultimately resulting in a polymer or carbon matrix, while the minority phase is selectively decomposed to generate pores after exposure to elevated temperatures in inert atmospheres. Additionally, the porous carbon products can be further used as hard templates for the synthesis of mesoporous silica with high purity. The pore structures of the resulting materials are easily modulated through selection of different commodity thermoplastic elastomer precursors, resulting in materials with pore sizes ranging from 4 nm – 20 nm, which is broader than typical pore sizes accessed from conventional soft-templated systems. This manufacturing platform could provide OMMs with greatly enhanced utility by greatly reducing cost and complexity in processing, while also producing large pore materials for use in previously inaccessible applications.

Thermoplastic elastomers as a template for the production of ordered mesoporous materials

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