An organic/inorganic hybrid mesoporous silica membrane: preparation and characterization

An organic/inorganic hybrid mesoporous silica membrane composed of mesoporous silica materials inside the channels of polycarbonate filtration membrane (PC) was synthesized by using aspiration-induced infiltration method, and the surfactant in as-prepared membrane was removed by employing template-extraction method. The obtained materials were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD),transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and N₂ adsorption–desorption measurement. The SEM images and EDS elemental analyses show that as-synthesized materials in PC are one-dimensional silica rods estimated as 200 nm in diameter and 9 μm in length. Moreover, the results of XRD, TEM and N₂ adsorption–desorption analysis clearly demonstrate that such silica rods are mesoporous materials with two-dimensional hexagonal mesostructure and the average mesopore diameter is about 3.0 nm. In addition, the porosity of organic/inorganic hybrid mesoporous silica membrane was further examined by molecule permeation. It is found that small molecule, such as rhodamine B, can transport across the membrane, but relatively large molecule, such as horse radish peroxidase, can not transport across the membrane, indicating that it is size-selectivity of such a membrane for molecule permeation, which has the potential application in the molecule filters to separate bio-macromolecule from small molecule.