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Nanostructured, electroactive and bioapplicable materials

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auxiliary organics, aging conditions <strong>and</strong> template removal method. 32,33,52 The wall<br />

thickness, which greatly affects the thermal stability of the material, is controlled by the<br />

charge of the surfactant <strong>and</strong> the formation mechanism. Materials prepared with neutral<br />

surfactants usually exhibit a greater wall thickness <strong>and</strong> furthermore a higher thermal<br />

stability than that obtained with ionic surfactants, due to the absence of electrostatic or<br />

charge-matching effects. 37<br />

1.4. Mesoporous Materials from Nonsurfactant Templated Sol-Gel Methods<br />

A novel nonsurfactant templated sol-gel route to mesoporous <strong>materials</strong> has been<br />

developed by our group. 53,54 Unlike the surfactant template pathway, the non-surfactant<br />

organic compounds, such as glucose, maltose, <strong>and</strong> dibenzoyltartaric acid, were employed<br />

as templates or pore structure directing agents during a sol-gel process under room<br />

temperature. The template can be easily removed by solvent extraction. The obtained<br />

<strong>materials</strong> exhibit mesoporosity with pore diameter of ~2-6 nm, which is controllable by<br />

simply varying the nonsurfactant content in the solution. The <strong>materials</strong> show high surface<br />

area of ~1000 m 2 g -1 <strong>and</strong> large pore volume of ~1.0 cm 3 g -1 . The pore structure is not<br />

highly ordered, which is similar to that of some neutral surfactant templated mesoporous<br />

<strong>materials</strong>. A framework filled with interconnected wormlike pores is observed. The initial<br />

study of the nonsurfactant template pathway involved the formation of silica mesophases<br />

under acidic conditions. Subsequent efforts have shown these structures can also be<br />

formed in basic or near neutral media. 53<br />

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