Structures of alkali metals in silica gel nanopores: new materials for chemical reductions and hydrogen production.

Alkali metals and their alloys can be protected from spontaneous reaction with dry air by intercalation (with subsequent heating) into the pores of silica gel (SG) at loadings up to 40 wt %. The resulting loose, black powders are convenient materials for chemical reduction of organic compounds and the production of clean hydrogen. The problem addressed in this paper is the nature of the reducing species present in these amorphous materials.

Mercury binding sites in thiol-functionalized mesostructured silica.

Thiol-functionalized mesostructured silica with anhydrous compositions of (SiO(2))(1)(-)(x)()(LSiO(1.5))(x)(), where L is a mercaptopropyl group and x is the fraction of functionalized framework silicon centers, are effective trapping agents for the removal of mercuric(II) ions from water. In the present work, we investigate the mercury-binding mechanism for representative thiol-functionalized mesostructures by atomic pair distribution function (PDF) analysis of synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data and by Raman spectroscopy.