Pore Morphology and Interconnectivity in a Mesoporous/Macroporous Polyhedral Silica Foam Material

Abstract

The pore system of a highly swollen, block-copolymer-templated, polyhedral silica foam material is investigated by a combination of transmission electron microscopy, nitrogen sorption, and NMR cryoporometry. The adsorption−desorption hysteresis and melting−freezing hysteresis data recorded by the respective methods provide pore volume and access channel sizes that virtually coincide for the two used methods. This provides a consistent picture where polyhedral foam cells of 60−70 nm diameter are interconnected by cylindrical access channels with several characteristic sizes for the latter.