Modelling the self-assembly of silica-based mesoporous materials

Recent Advances in Enabling Green Manufacture of Functional Nanomaterials: A Case Study of Bioinspired Silica

Global specialty silica production is over 3 million tonnes per annum with diverse applications across sectors and an increasing demand for more complex material structures and surface chemistries. Commercial manufacturing of high-value silica nanomaterials is energy and resource intensive. In order to meet market needs and mitigate environmental impacts, new synthesis methods for these porous materials are required. The development of the bioinspired silica (BIS) product system, which is the focus of this review, provides a potential solution to this challenge. BIS is a versatile and greener route with the prospect of good scalability, attractive process economics and well controlled product materials. The potential of the system lies not only in its provision of specific lead materials but also, as itself, a rich design-space for the flexible and potentially predictive design of diverse sustainable silica nanomaterials. Realizing the potential of this design space, requires an integrative mind-set, which enables parallel and responsive progression of multiple and dependent research strands, according to need, opportunities, and emergent knowledge. Specifically, this requires development of detailed understanding of (i) the pathways and extent of material diversity and control, (ii) the influences and mechanisms of scale-up, and (iii) performance, economic and environmental characteristics and sensitivities. Crucially, these need to be developed for the system overall, which sits in contrast to a more traditional research approach, which focuses initially on the discovery of specific material leads at the laboratory scale, leaving scale-up, commercialization, and, potentially, pathway understanding to be considered as distinctly separate concerns. The intention of this review is to present important recent advances made in the field of BIS. Specifically, advances made along three research themes will be discussed: (a) particle formation pathways, (b) product design, and (c) scale-up and manufacture. These advances include first quantitative investigation of synthesis-product relationships, first structured investigation of mixing effects, preparation of a broad range of functionalized and encapsulated silica materials and continued industrial engagement and market research. We identify future challenges and provide an important foundation for the development of new research avenues. These include the need to develop comprehensive and predictive product design models, to understand markets in terms of product cost, performance and environmental considerations, and to develop capabilities enabling rapid prototyping and scale-up of desired nanomaterials.

New Force-Field for Organosilicon Molecules in the Liquid Phase

In this paper, we present a new molecular model that can accurately predict thermodynamic liquid state and phase-change properties for organosilicon molecules including several functional groups (alkylsilane, alkoxysilane, siloxane, and silanol). These molecules are of great importance in geological processes, biological systems, and material science, yet no force field currently exists that is widely applicable to organosilicates. The model is parametrized according to the recent Polarization-Consistent Approach (PolCA), which allows for polarization effects to be incorporated into a nonpolarizable model through post facto correction terms and is therefore consistent with previous parametrizations of the PolCA force field. Alkyl groups are described by the United-Atom approach, bond and angle parameters were taken from previous literature studies, dihedral parameters were fitted to new quantum chemical energy profiles, point charges were calculated from quantum chemical optimizations in a continuum solvent, and Lennard-Jones dispersion/repulsion parameters were fitted to match the density and enthalpy of vaporization of a small number of selected compounds. Extensive validation efforts were carried out, after careful collection and curation of experimental data for organosilicates. Overall, the model performed quite well for the density, enthalpy of vaporization, dielectric constant, and self-diffusion coefficient, but it slightly overestimated the magnitude of self-solvation free energies. The modular and transferable nature of the PolCA force field allows for further extensions to other types of silicon-containing compounds.

Self-assembly of the cationic surfactant n-hexadecyl-trimethylammonium chloride in methyltrimethoxysilane aqueous solution: classical and reactive molecular dynamics simulations

A flexible aerogel polymerized from methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS) shows great promise as a high-performance insulator owing to its substantially low thermal conductivity and mechanical flexibility, attributed to its porous microstructure and organic-inorganic hybridization, respectively, which promote its industrial applications. Conventionally, the cationic surfactant n-hexadecyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTAC) is utilized to experimentally control the nanoscale microstructure and, consequently, the flexibility of the MTMS aerogel; however, the mechanism through which CTAC prevents MTMS aggregation in the solution is not yet fully understood. This study unravels the role of CTAC in preventing MTMS aggregation in aqueous solution using both classical and reactive molecular dynamics simulations. We found that CTAC molecules can form self-aggregates even when the polymerization of MTMS progresses and then the MTMS-derived oligomer turns to be hydrophobic in aqueous solution. In summary, the self-assemblies of CTAC disperse among the MTMS associations and effectively prevent MTMS clustering, and this is considered as the key mechanism underlying the formation of a flexible microstructure of the hybrid aerogel.

Liquid/liquid interface in periodic boundary condition

We study how surface phenomena can change the interface geometry in liquid-liquid two-phase systems with periodic boundary conditions. Without any curvature effect on surface tension, planar (slab), cylindrical, and spherical structures are successively obtained as a function of the total composition and elongation of the box, in accordance with molecular dynamics simulations for a water/heptane system. The curvature effects described by Tolman relationship desymmetrize the phase diagram by stabilizing a concavity but it leads to inconsistencies with high curvature. Helfrich model partially resolves this and predicts the possible presence of shells reflecting a frustrated system.

Mimicking Biosintering: The Identification of Highly Condensed Surfaces in Bioinspired Silica Materials

Interfacial interactions between inorganic surfaces and organic additives are vital to develop new complex nanomaterials. Learning from biosilica materials, composite nanostructures have been developed, which exploit the strength and directionality of specific polyamine additive-silica surface interactions. Previous interpretations of these interactions are almost universally based on interfacial charge matching and/or hydrogen bonding. In this study, we analyzed the surface chemistry of bioinspired silica (BIS) materials using solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy as a function of the organic additive concentration. We found significant additional association between the additives and fully condensed (Q⁴) silicon species compared to industrial silica materials, leading to more overall Q⁴ concentration and higher hydrothermal stability, despite BIS having a shorter synthesis time. We posit that the polyfunctionality and catalytic activity of additives in the BIS synthesis lead to both of these surface phenomena, contrasting previous studies on monofunctional surfactants used in most other artificial templated silica syntheses. From this, we propose that additive polyfunctionality can be used to generate tailored artificial surfaces in situ and provide insights into the process of biosintering in biosilica systems, highlighting the need for more in-depth simulations on interfacial interactions at silica surfaces.

Surface structure of linear nanopores in amorphous silica: Comparison of properties for different pore generation algorithms

We compare the surface structure of linear nanopores in amorphous silica (a-SiO₂) for different versions of "pore drilling" algorithms (where the pores are generated by the removal of atoms from the preformed bulk a-SiO₂) and for "cylindrical resist" algorithms (where a-SiO₂ is formed around a cylindrical exclusion region). After adding H to non-bridging O, the former often results in a moderate to high density of surface silanol groups, whereas the latter produces a low density. The silanol surface density for pore drilling can be lowered by a final dehydroxylation step, and that for the cylindrical resist approach can be increased by a final hydroxylation step. In this respect, the two classes of algorithms are complementary. We focus on the characterization of the chemical structure of the pore surface, decomposing the total silanol density into components corresponding to isolated and vicinal mono silanols and geminal silanols. The final dehyroxylation and hydroxylation steps can also be tuned to better align some of these populations with the target experimental values.