Percolation transition in the porous structure of latex-templated silica monoliths

François Guillemot (1, 2) , Aline Brunet-Bruneau (3) , Elodie Bourgeat-Lami (4) , Jean-Pierre Boilot (1) , Etienne Barthel (2) , Thierry Gacoin (1)

1 LPMC - Laboratoire de physique de la matière condensée
2 SVI - Surface du Verre et Interfaces
3 INSP - Institut des Nanosciences de Paris
4 C2P2 - Laboratoire de Chimie, Catalyse, Polymères et Procédés, R 5265

Porous sol-gel silica monoliths are prepared using PMMA nanoparticles, 60 nm in diameter, as sacrificial templates. The pore-structure of the calcined pellets is investigated through nitrogen adsorption to assess the evolution of the porosity when varying the amount of porogen. The latex templated monoliths present a well defined spherical extrinsic porosity and an intrinsic microporosity due to preparation process. As a result of a careful analysis of the adsorption hysteresis, we identify a percolation threshold of the spherical porosity around 30% volume fraction. This phenomenon, similar to the percolation previously observed in latex-templated silica films, opens the way to the use of latex-templated porous silica monoliths with a tailorable and reliable pore structure.

Mots clés: mesoporous silica monoliths; Latex templated silica; sol-gel silica; Porosity percolation; adsorption isotherms

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

François Guillemot, Aline Brunet-Bruneau, Elodie Bourgeat-Lami, Jean-Pierre Boilot, Etienne Barthel, et al.. Percolation transition in the porous structure of latex-templated silica monoliths. Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, 2013, 172, pp.146-150. ⟨10.1016/j.micromeso.2012.12.045⟩. ⟨hal-00773537⟩