• Universitat de València

• Ruth de los Reyes Cánovas

Mesoporous materials are widely used in different sectors for their excellent properties related to high surface areas and modulable particle size. However, they have the disadvantage that their synthesis is slow and tedious, often involving long processing and/or ageing times. Moreover, in many cases they are not scalable to larger quantities. In addition, after obtaining them, they require a calcination stage lasting several hours to eliminate the surfactant that has been used as a directing agent in the formation of pores. This limits their cost-effectiveness and commercial application. So far, methodologies to remove the directing agent require acids, organic solvents or calcination in electrical resistance based furnaces (magnetrons). However, there has so far been no fast and simple synthesis method that is also capable of completely calcining the solid in a simple way and in a short time.

Researchers at the Universitat de València have developed a new ultrafast procedure for obtaining mesoporous materials by using microwave radiation form solid-state sources, which solves the problems described above. By applying this technology under well-controlled conditions, bimodal mesoporous materials based on silicon oxides are obtained quickly and homogeneously.

The invention can be applied in any sector that uses mesoporous systems, for example in the pharmaceutical food, agricultural and research sectors. It can also be used by companies currrently marketing microwave chemical synthesis equipment based on a mangetron as a radiation source, as an imporvement by replacing the source with a solid state source.

The described procedure has the following advantages:

• Speed: Improvement of the time needed to prepare the materials.
• High homogeneity of the material obtained and reproducibility of results.
• Energy saving: Lower consumption of microwaveradiation compared to alternative methods.
• Reduced investment cost: Lower cost of the equipment necessary to apply the procedure.

• Patent applied