Quick high-temperature hydrothermal synthesis of mesoporous materials with 3D cubic structure for the adsorption of lysozyme

Three-dimensional cage-like mesoporous FDU-12 materials with large tuneable pore sizes ranging from 9.9 to 15.6 nm were prepared by varying the synthesis temperature from 100 to 200 °C for the aging time of just 2 h using a tri-block copolymer F-127(EO₁₀₆PO₇₀EO₁₀₆) as the surfactant and 1,3,5-trimethyl benzene as the swelling agent in an acidic condition. The mesoporous structure and textural features of FDU-12-HX (where H denotes the hydrothermal method and X denotes the synthesis temperature) samples were elucidated and probed using x-ray diffraction, N₂ adsorption, ²⁹Si magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. It has been demonstrated that the aging time can be significantly reduced from 72 to 2 h without affecting the structural order of the FDU-12 materials with a simple adjustment of the synthesis temperature from 100 to 200 °C. Among the materials prepared, the samples prepared at 200 °C had the highest pore volume and the largest pore diameter. Lysozyme adsorption experiments were conducted over FDU-12 samples prepared at different temperatures in order to understand their biomolecule adsorption capacity, where the FDU-12-HX samples displayed high adsorption performance of 29 μmol g⁻¹ in spite of shortening the actual synthesis time from 72 to 2 h. Further, the influence of surface area, pore volume and pore diameter on the adsorption capacity of FDU-12-HX samples has been investigated and results are discussed in correlation with the textural parameters of the FDU-12-HX and other mesoporous adsorbents including SBA-15, MCM-41, KIT-5, KIT-6 and CMK-3.