Shaodian Shen

A novel ordered cubic mesoporous silica templated with tri-head group quaternary ammonium surfactantElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available: projections of a typical diamond structure with Fd3m space group; 1H NMR data; elemental analysis; SEM image; experimental characterization. See http://www.rsc.org/suppdata/cc/b2/b206993h/

An ordered mesoporous silica with novel cubic structure (space group Fd3m) has been synthesized by using tri-head group quaternary ammonium surfactants [CmH2m + 1N+(CH3)2CH2CH2N+(CH3)2CH2CH2CH2N+(-)(CH3)(3).3Br-] (Cm-2-3-1, m = 14, 16, 18) as the structure-directing agents under basic conditions at low temperature.

Synthesis of cubic ordered mesoporous YPO4:Ln3+ and their photoluminescence properties

Cubic ordered mesoporous yttrium phosphate (YPO4) and lanthanide-doped yttrium phosphates (YPO4:Ln3+, Ln3+ = Eu3+, Tb3+ and Ce3+) have been synthesized successfully through the nanocasting route by employing the Y(NO3)3:Ln(NO3)3/H3PO4/HNO3 system as a guest unit and KIT-6 silica as a hard template host, and their textural and structure properties were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electronic microscope and nitrogen adsorption at low temperature. The results show that the cubic ordered mesoporous YPO4 and YPO4:Ln3+ materials exhibit high surface area, large pore volume and uniform pore size distribution. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements exhibit their optical properties such as red, green and blue emission, and their PL intensities can be altered by the dopant Ln3+ concentration, without the need for doping or grafting external fluorophore species.

Synthesis of cubic and hexagonal ordered mesoporous YVO4:Eu3+ and their photoluminescence properties

Cubic and hexagonal ordered mesoporous Eu3+-doped yttrium vanadate (YVO4:Eu3+) have been synthesized successfully through the nanocasting route with a Y(NO3)3/Eu(NO3)3/NH4VO3/HNO3/ethanol system as a guest unit and KIT-6 or SBA-15 silica as the hard template host, and were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electronic microscopy (TEM) and low-temperature nitrogen adsorption. The prepared YVO4:Eu3+ samples have the characteristic cubic (Ia3d) (or hexagonal (p6mm)) ordered mesostructure based on different hard templates, and possess high surface area, large pore volume and uniform pore size distribution. Photoluminescence (PL) measurement shows that the main red emission peaks of two mesoporous YVO4:Eu3+ samples appear at 618 nm, and different mesostructures lead to different optimum concentrations of Eu3+ dopant and different PL intensities. For the hexagonal mesoporous YVO4:Eu3+, when Eu3+ dopant is 5(mol)% the highest PL intensity can be reached; for the cubic one, optimized Eu3+ amount is 8 mol%. The interaction between Eu3+ ions in hexagonal (p6mm) mesoporous YVO4:Eu3+ is more active than that in cubic (Ia3d) mesoporous YVO4:Eu3+, thus the absorbed energy is dissipated by nonradiation; while the cubic mesoporous YVO4:Eu3+ has more Eu3+ luminescent sites, compared with the hexagonal mesostructure one.

Controlled synthesis of N-doped carbon spheres with different morphologies for supercapacitors

A facile and general strategy has been developed for synthesizing nitrogen doped mesoporous carbon nanospheres (NMCs), newly nitrogen doped lychee exocarp-like mesoporous carbon spheres (NLEMCs) and nitrogen doped core–shell mesoporous carbon spheres (NCSMCs). In this soft templating strategy, cetyltrimethylammonium chloride is used as the template while m-aminophenol is employed as a nitrogen source. All three types of N-doped carbon nanospheres, with uniform spherical morphologies, abundant mesoporous structures, high N-doped content, high surface areas and large pore volumes, exhibit specific capacitances of 262.4 F g−1, 323.2 F g−1 and 247.06 F g−1, respectively, at a current density of 0.2 A g−1 in 6 M KOH electrolyte solution. NLEMCs with a new lychee exocarp-like spherical morphology show an excellent electrochemical performance as a supercapacitor electrode, which may be due to there being more active sites, caused by the high surface area.

Synthesis of hydrophobic layered luminescent films: Organic–inorganic hybrid mono-n-dodecyloxy-phosphinyl-cerium (terbium)

With hydrophobic properties and ordered layered structures, mono-n-dodecyloxy-phosphinyl-cerium (terbium) (MDPCT) organic–inorganic hybrid materials were synthesized using cerium nitrate, terbium nitrate and mono-n-dodecyl phosphate (MDP) surfactant with three functions, hydrophobic group and phosphorus precursor, and characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, FTIR and PLS. The results show that the solvent affects the interlayer spacing, crystallization and luminescent intensity of the prepared MDPCT materials. MDPCT prepared in water exhibits a more ordered layered structure and a higher degree of crystallinity, as well as stronger luminescent intensity than that prepared in ethanol. Based on the excellent solubility in organic solvents, this MDPCT hybrid luminescent material will be a promising candidate for potential biomedical applications in fluorescent imaging and analysis.

Synthesis of mesoporous silica with novel structures using rigid bolaform ammonium surfactants

Mesoporous silica with a novel Structure (FDU-11) has been prepared for the first time by using a rigid bolaform tetra-head-group quaternary ammonium surfactant: [(CH3)(3)NCH2CH2CH2CH2N(CH3)(2) CH2(CH2)(11)OC6H4C6H4O(CH2)(11)CH2N(CH3)(2)CH2CH2CH2N(CH3)(3)](4+)center dot 4Br(-) under an alkaline condition. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) studies show that the mesoporous silica FDU-11 may have a low symmetric tetragonal mesostructure with P4/mm:space group. N-2 sorption isotherms show that calcined mesoporous silica FDU-11 has the BET surface arc of 281 m(2)/g, pore size of 2.05 nm and the pore volume of 0.36 cm(3)/g. A phase transformation from FDU-1 into another unknown mesoporous silica structure by a hydrothermal treatment is observed, suggesting intermediate nature of the FDU-11 mesophase.