Facile synthesis of highly ordered mesoporous ZnTiO3 with crystalline walls by self-adjusting method

Highly ordered mesoporous ZnTiO(3) with crystalline walls was directly prepared by a sol-gel process combined with evaporation induced self-assembly in ethanol, using amphiphilic triblock copolymers as structure directing agents. The whole process is self-adjusting to organize the network-forming metal oxide species without additional acid or base. The mesoporous material is pure cubic-phase ZnTiO(3) and has large surface area (up to 134 m(2)/g), large pore volume (0.17 cm(3)/g), and narrow pore size distribution (3-4.5 nm). The optic behavior was systematically studied, which is very helpful to understand the mesoporous ZnTiO(3) material either in fundamental study or for potential applications in optics and catalysis. This work provides a "self-adjusting" approach to fabricate the mesoporous functional materials with diverse compositions: the diverse hydrolysis-condensation kinetics of various metal oxides is homogenized to yield stable multicomponent precursors. The development of such a simple, versatile, and reproducible method is important for applications in practice.