Affiliation:
1. Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, 1280 Main St. W, Hamilton, ON L8S 4M1, Canada
Abstract
Many strategies have been adopted to prepare silica materials with highly controlled structures, typically using sol–gel chemistry. Frequently, the alkoxysilanes used in sol–gel chemistry are based on monoalcohols, e.g., Si(OEt)4. The structural control over silica synthesis achieved by these precursors is highly sensitive to pH and solvency. Alkoxysilanes derived from the sugar alcohol glycerol (diglycerylsilane) react more slowly and with much less sensitivity to pH. We report that, in the presence of cooled aqueous starch solutions, glyceroxysilanes undergo transesterification with the sugars on starch, leading to (hollow) microtubules resembling worms of about 400 nm in diameter. The tubes arise from the pre-assembly of starch bundles, which occurs only well below room temperature. It is straightforward to treat the first-formed starch/silica composite with the enzyme amylase to, in a programmed fashion, increasingly expose porosity, including the worm morphology, while washing away untethered silica and digested starch to leave an open, highly porous materials. Sintering at 600 °C completely removes the starch silane moieties.
Funder
Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada
Subject
General Materials Science
Reference35 articles.
1. Iler, R.K. (1979). The Chemistry of Silica: Solubility, Polymerization, Colloid and Surface Properties and Biochemistry, John Wiley & Sons.
2. Simpson, T.L., and Volcani, B.E. (1981). Silicon and Siliceous Structures in Biological Systems, Springer.
3. Brook, M.A. (2000). Silicon in Organic, Organometallic and Polymer Chemistry, John Wiley & Sons.
4. The evolution of ‘sol–gel’ chemistry as a technique for materials synthesis;Danks;Mater. Horiz.,2016
5. Sol–gel synthesis of monolithic materials with hierarchical porosity;Feinle;Chem. Soc. Rev.,2016
Cited by
3 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献，注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献，订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献