Study The Effect of Surfactant on The Porous Structure of Silica Monolith

Abstract

Sol-gel technique was used to fabricate silica monoliths by using different ratio of cationic, non-ionic and anionic surfactant which are used as moulds for various industrial applications. The as synthesized silica monoliths exhibits a hierarchical pore structure with inter-connected mesopores having pore diameter in the range 2-50nm which was confirmed by BET analysis. Further, the specific surface area was higher for monolith which was prepared by using cationic surfactant (C18TAB, 782.54) and the surface morphology was confirmed by SEM analysis. The results show the improvement of higher specific surface area of monoliths with different chain lengths of surfactants and with the increase in the surfactants concentrations.