This dissertation is focused on synthesis, characterization and formation mechanism of anionic-surfactant-templated mesoporous silica (AMS). Structural control mechanisms of AMS are investigated. First, different ionization degree of anionic surfactant affected by the acidity or alkalinity of the synthesis system gives rise to different charging density of micelles and therefore determines the organic/inorganic interface curvature, producing mesophases from cage-type to cylindrical, bicontinuous and lamellar. Second, mesocage/mesocage electrostatic repulsive interaction affects the formation of cage-type mesostructure, which is derived from a full-scaled synthesis-field diagram of AMS. The mesocage/mesocage interaction changes with charge density of mesocages and gives rise to their different packing manners. Third, the structural properties of AMS materials could be tuned by molecular features of surfactant and co-structure-directing agent (CSDA). The pore size of AMS is found to be controlled by alkyl chain length, ionization degree of surfactant and the CSDA/surfactant ratio. Alkyl chain length of surfactant determines size of micelles and thus mesopores. Larger ionization degrees of anionic surfactant give rise to smaller pore sizes due to thermodynamic coiling of alkyl chains of surfactant. The hydrophobic interactions between the pendant organic groups of CSDA on the silica wall and the hydrophobic core of the micelles drive a contraction of the mesopores. A mesoporous silica with novel bicontinuous cubic Pn-3m structure has been prepared using a diprotic anionic surfactant. 3d-reconstruction of the structure shows that it is bicontinuous composed of an enantiomeric pair of 3d mesoporous networks that are interwoven with each other, divided by a D surface. Inverse replication suggests the possible presence of ordered complimentary micropores in the material.

The work presented in this thesis has been focus on developing the idea of mesoreactor based on mesoporous silica SBA-15. SBA-15 is a mesoporous material with highly ordered pore structure and tailorable pore sizes with narrow sizes distribution. SBA-15 has been utilized to provide reaction sites for electroless copper deposition and the support of the synthesized copper nanoparticles. Oxidation processes have been conducted in order to improve the weak ion-exchange capability of as-synthesized silica surfaces. The efficiency of oxidation processes have been studied through various oxidizing agents and time. The surface treatments of mesoporous silica have been proofed to affect the distribution of the nanoparticles. Copper nanoparticles of 5 nm with narrow size distribution have been synthesized without the use of any capping agents and are homogeneously embedded in the silica matrix.

Mesoporous silica particles offer great potential benefits as vehicles for drug delivery and in other biomedical applications. They present a high loading capacity due their ordered and size-tuneable pores that allow molecules to be loaded and released. In addition, they offer the possibility to enhance oral bioavailability of drugs with limited aqueous solubility and to protect pH sensitive drugs from the acidic conditions in the stomach on their way to the intestine. The aim of this thesis was to evaluate the biocompatibility and effects of mesoporous silica particles on immunocompetent cells. Subsequently, two potential life sciences applications were investigated: as adjuvants and as weight reduction agents. Adjuvants are used in vaccines in order to enhance the immunological response towards attenuated and poorly immunogenic antigens. Their function can be mediated through dendritic cells which have a central role in the control of adaptive immunity including immunological memory. Our results show that different types of mesoporous silica particles were able to tune the development of T cells both in human cell cultures and in mice. In contrast to the approved adjuvant alum (aluminium salts) which is a specific inducer of Th2-type immune responses, the particles induced more Th1-like responses, which may be desired in vaccines against allergy and intracellular pathogens such as viruses. Particle exposure to macrophages did not affect their cell function which is crucial for tissue homeostasis, wound repair and in prevention of autoimmune responses. Likewise, the cytokine secretion was not affected, which suggest that macrophages would not modulate the immune response towards the particles. Furthermore, mesoporous silica particles were highly tolerated at daily oral administrations of up to 2000 mg/kg doses for some of the materials prepared. Large pore mesoporous silica particles were shown to act as weight and body fat reduction agents without other observable pathological signs when administered in the diet of obese mice. Together; those results are promising for the development of mesoporous silica as drug delivery systems and adjuvants for oral administration of drugs or vaccines. Additionally, large pore mesoporous silica materials are potential agents for the treatment of obesity.

A series of immiscible crystalline-crystalline diblock copolymers, poly(ethylene oxide)-b-(£`-caprolactone) (PEO-b-PCL), were synthesized through ring-opening polymerization and then blended with phenolic resin. FT-IR analyses provide that the ether group of PEO is a stronger hydrogen bond acceptor than the carbonyl group of PCL with the hydroxyl group of phenolic. Phenolic after curing with hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) results in the excluded and confined PCL phase based on differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) analyses. This effect leads to the formation of a variety of composition-dependent nanostructures, including disorder, gyroid and short cylinder. The self-organized mesoporous phenolic resin was only found at 40~60 wt% phenolic content by intriguing balance of the contents of phenolic, PEO, and PCL. In addition, the mesoporous structure was destroyed with the increasing the ratio of PCL to PEO in block copolymers by small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses. In addition, the large and long-range order of bicontinuous gyroid-type mesoporous carbon was obtained from mesoporous gyroid phenolic resin calcined at 800 ¢XC under nitrogen.

A series of immiscible crystalline-crystalline diblock copolymers, poly(ethylene oxide)-b-(£`-caprolactone) (PEO-b-PCL), were blended with (3-phenyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-1,3-benzoxazin-6-yl) methanol (Pa-OH). FT-IR analyses provide that the ether group of PEO is a stronger hydrogen bond acceptor than the carbonyl group of PCL with the hydroxyl group of Pa-OH. Pa-OH after curing results in the excluded and confined PCL phase based on differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) analyses. In addition, the mesoporous structure was proved with the increasing the ratio of PCL to PEO in block copolymers by small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses and N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms (BET) The poly(styrene-b-4-vinyl pyridine) diblock copolymer was blended with Pa-OH monomer. FT-IR analyses demonstrate the intermolecular hydrogen bonding interaction between the pyridine group of P4VP and the hydroxyl group of Pa-OH. After curing, the block copolymers were incorporated into polybenzoxazine resin to access the nanostructure through the reaction induced microphase separation mechanism by TEM and SAXS analyses.

There is an increasing demand for materials that are physically robust, easily recovered, and able to perform a wide variety of chemical functions. By combining hard and soft matter synergistically, organic-inorganic hybrid materials are potentially useful for a number of applications (e.g. catalysis, separations, sensing). In this respect, organic/ordered mesoporous silica (OMS) hybrids have attracted considerable attention, with an increasing emphasis on complex organic moieties achieved through multi-step reactions and polymerizations. It is on this front that we have focused our work, specifically in regard to polypeptides. Polypeptides are well suited organic components for hybrids as they provide a wide range of possible side chain chemistries (NH2, -SH, -COOH, -OH, etc.), chirality, and have conformations that are known to be responsive to external stimuli (pH, electrolytes, solvents, etc.). Our work has shown that N-carboxyanhydride chemistry offers a facile single step approach to the incorporation of dense polypeptide brushes in OMS. Modifying the initiator loading, pore size, pore topology, and monomer identity significantly impacted the properties of the obtained composites and peptide brush layers. Extending this work, a synthesis paradigm for preferentially grafting poly-L-lysine to the external and internal surfaces of SBA-15, a widely used OMS material, was developed. We observed that the pores of these hybrids could be opened and closed by the reversible swelling of the polypeptide layer. Similarly, novel bifunctional hybrids were synthesized by grafting polypeptides to the external surface of monodisperse OMS spheres that contain a thiol-functionalized core. The accessibility of the internal thiols to a fluorescent dye shows the potential of these hybrids for applications such as controlled uptake/release.

Zirconia is a metal oxide with high band gap. It is commonly used as catalysts in many industrial practices. In recent years, its high-energy-gap value and redox properties also render it as an excellent photocatalyst, which can eliminate or reduce a variety of pollutants. The purpose of this work is to prepare and characterize the chromium-doped ordered porous zirconia. The main purpose of doping chromium into the zirconia is to avoid the Martensitic transformation of zirconia under high temperatures by volume change and pore structure change, thus reducing the cracking and inferior mechanical properties. With emulsion-free polymerization for the synthesis of polystyrene (PS) particles, controlling the particle diameter less than 200 nm is possible. A polystyrene template is thus produced by gravity sedimentation of these PS particles. Final Cr-doped zirconia is obtained by infiltration of a precursor solution, a mixture consisting of zirconium n-propoxide, n-propanol, acetylacetone, and chromium (III) nitrate nonahydrate, into the PS template, followed by drying and calcination at elevated temperatures. A systematic study on the pore structure and physical properties by XRD and Raman is conducted by varying the precursor concentration, the calcination temperature, and the dopant concentration. The results show that, unlike the pure zirconia, the pore structure of Cr-doped zirconia remains stable under higher calcination temperatures. Without any phase transformation, the doped Cr, evidenced from the EDS mapping, tends to help stabilize the zirconia at tetragonal phase. The average surface area and pore diameter of Cr-doped zirconia from BET measurement are 19 ~ 21 m2/g and 25 -45 nm, far better than the bulk zirconia. The improved surface properties are also confirmed by SEM observations.

Efficient reuse of waste water requires removal of micro-pollutants from waste water streams by affordable and sustainable methods. Activated carbon is considered a powerful adsorbent due to its high surface area and low cost of treatment, compared to other expensive methods such as membrane filtration. Producing activated carbon with larger mesoporosity (>2nm) is of particular interest in industry in the removal of larger molecular sized pollutants. This study reports the synthesis of mesoporous activated carbons from a nonsoluble biomass precursor (date-pits) along with chemical activation using ZnCl2. Thus, produced activated carbon showed high surface area and large mesopore volume up to 1571 m2/g and 2.00 cm3/g respectively. In addition, the pore size of the product was as high as 9.30 nm. As a method of verification, HRTEM (Highresolution transmission electron microscopy) was used to directly authenticate the pore size of the synthesized activated carbons. Tannic acid and atrazine were used as model waste water pollutants and the adsorption capability of the produced activated carbon for these pollutants were evaluated and compared to a commercial mesoporous carbon: G60 from Norit. The results showed that the sorption capacity of produced activated carbon for tannic acid was 2 times that of G60 while the sorption capacity of produced activated carbon for atrazine was lower than that of G60. The activated carbon was also evaluated for adsorption of real secondary effluent municipal wastewater and the results suggest that the produced activated carbon was able to sorb a greater amount of biopolymers than G60. These results demonstrate that the thus-produced activated carbon may be a promising sorbent for waste water treatment.

The Suzuki-Miyaura Cross-Coupling of aryl halides and aryl boronic esters has become one of the most important and oft used C-C bond forming reactions in industry and academia alike. Recently, substantial effort has been invested in expanding this reaction to include alkyl boronic esters as coupling partners, though until recently, success has been limited to primary alkyl boronic esters. Secondary alkyl boronic esters, with the inherent possibility of being chiral, have proven to be more difficult to couple. As a means of expanding our program on the enantio- and regioselective hydroboration of styrene derivatives, we sought to develop conditions that could couple benzylic (secondary) boronic esters. Not only was the coupling to aryl iodides achieved in moderate to good yield with a commercially available (and relatively cheap) catalyst system and phosphine, but the coupling reaction proceeds with almost complete retention of the stereochemistry installed during the hydroboration reaction. Interestingly, these conditions leave primary (linear) alkyl boronic esters completely untouched. Further examination of the chemoselectivity of the reaction revealed that, despite being unable to cross-couple strictly aliphatic secondary boronic esters, our silver-mediated protocol was able to effectively cross-couple chiral allylic boronic esters in high yield and good regioselectivity. The asymmetric syntheses of novel secondary boronic esters have also been developed to overcome the substrate limitations of the hydroboration reaction. Together with our effective cross coupling strategy, these novel chiral boronic esters have led to the synthesis of exciting new classes of molecules, most notably, the asymmetric triarylmethanes. Finally, the stability of mesoporous silica supports used in Pd catalysis was assessed. Though silica supports effectively reduce Pd-contamination in reaction mixtures to sub-ppm levels, their long-term reusability is hindered by material degradation caused by harsh reaction conditions. It was found that aqueous base, required for the Suzuki-Miyaura reaction, is responsible for silica degradation and the collapse of mesostructure. Interestingly, it was determined that the reaction itself had a protective effect on the material, with the boric acid side-product mitigating the deleterious effect of the base. / Thesis (Ph.D, Chemistry) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-19 14:53:49.444

The results of this study show that novel mesoporous carbons were obtained as inverse replica of SBA-15, HMS and MCM-41 silica templates, with a large pore diameter (2-4 nm), a BET surface area of 1867, 874 and 910 m2g –1 respectively for CA_SBA-15_LPG_105, CA_HMS_LPG_80 and CA_MCM- 41_LPG_80 with bimodal pore size distribution (PSD) in the mesopores range. The results obtained show that mesoporous carbon with graphitic structures can be synthesized via the LPG route.