Facile synthesis of ordered mesoporous silica with high γ-Fe ₂O₃ loading via sol-gel process

A series of ordered mesoporous silica loaded with iron oxide was synthesized by facile one-step sol-gel route using Pluronic P123 as the template, tetraethylorthosilicate as the silica source, and hydrated iron nitrite as the precursor under acid conditions. The as-synthesized materials with Fe/Si molar ratio ranging from 0.1 to 0.8 were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM), and N₂ adsorption porosimetry. All samples possess ordered hexagonal mesoporous structure similar to SBA-15, with a high surface area, large pore volume, and uniform pore size. Although higher iron content causes a distortion of hexagonal ordering structure to some extent, the materials still maintain the ordered mesopore structure even with Fe/Si molar ratio as high as 0.8. Pore structure and TEM data suggest that iron oxide nanoparticles are buried within the silica wall, and increasing the iron oxide loading has little effects on the pore structure of the mesoporous silica. VSM results show as-synthesized samples exhibit superparamagnetic behavior.