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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2020
In 1992, researchers at Mobil Research and Development created a new class of porous silicates, most notably MCM-41. This material features a hexagonal arrangement of pores and surface areas in excess of 1000 m2 g-1. Typically, MCM-41 exhibits pore diameters around 2.5 nm and a d-spacing around 4.0 nm, but slight variations in the synthesis of MCM-41 can produce a range of pore sizes from 2 to 10 nm. Zeolites, in comparison, have pore openings smaller than 1.3 nm and surface areas of a few hundred square meters per gram.
Recently, Aronson et al. have been studying the grafting of TiO2 to MCM-41. TiO2 is a versatile photocatalyst in many selective organic oxidations and other reactions, including the degradation of environmental toxins. by dispersing TiO2 on the internal surface of a mesoporous support one can increase the active surface area significantly and introduce some size-selectivity.