Tailoring of Morphology and Texture of Mesoporous Molecular Sieve MCM-41 by using Different Silica Sources

Highly ordered pure-silica MCM-41 material possessing well-defined morphology has been successfully synthesised. Attempts have been made for the synthesis of highly ordered MCM-41 using different silica sources such tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS), sodium silicate and fumed silica. By studying the effect of various silica sources on the morphology and texture of MCM-41, a fast, convenient, scalable, facile and cost-effective methodology was developed. The synthesised samples were characterised by XRD, N2-physisorption, SEM and TEM.