Structure study of the tri-continuous mesoporous silica IBN-9 by electron crystallography

Daliang Zhang, Junliang Sun, Yu Han, Xiaodong Zou

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

High resolution electron microscopy (HRTEM) has unique advantages for structural determination of nano-sized porous materials compared to X-ray diffraction, because it provides the important structure factor phase information which is lost in diffraction. Here we demonstrate the structure determination of the first tri-continuous mesoporous silica IBN-9 by electron crystallography. IBN-9 has a hexagonal unit cell with the space group P6 3/mcm and a = 88.4 , c = 84.3 . HRTEM images taken along three main directions, [0 0 1], [11̄0] and [1 0 0] were combined to reconstruct the 3D electrostatic potential map, from which the tri-continuous pore structure of IBN-9 was discovered. The different steps of structure determination of unknown mesoporous structures by electron crystallography are described in details. Similar procedures can also be applied for structure determination of other porous and nonporous crystalline materials. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)88-96
Number of pages9
JournalMicroporous and Mesoporous Materials
Volume146
Issue number1-3
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2011

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Mechanics of Materials
  • General Materials Science
  • General Chemistry
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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