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Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Controlling the Size, Shape and Stability of Supramolecular Polymers in Water
Published on: August 2, 2012
Hard-sphere packing and icosahedral assembly in the formation of mesoporous materials
Jiawei Tang1, Xufeng Zhou, Dongyuan Zhao
1Department of Chemistry and Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, PR China.
Abstract:
We report the synthesis and characterization of a novel mesoporous material with a face-centered cubic (fcc) symmetry and intrinsic bimodal pores. Moreover, an icosahedral (ICO) mesostructure with both meso- and macroscale 5-fold symmetry is observed. We propose a hard-sphere packing (HSP) mechanism for the formation of mesoporous materials by assuming preformed robust surfactant/silicate composite micelles being hard spheres. In comparison to the conventional liquid crystal templating (LCT) or cooperative self-assembly (CSA) mechanism, our contribution provides an important advancement of knowledge in the study of mesostructured materials.
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