Electrodeposition of mesoporous semimetal and magnetic metal films from lyotropic liquid crystalline phases.

Mesoporous semimetal bismuth film and magnetic metal nickel and cobalt thin films have been electrodeposited from hexagonal or lamellar structured lyotropic liquid crystalline phases with polyoxyethylene surfactant. The liquid crystalline templates are characterized by low-angle X-ray diffraction (XRD) and polarized-light optical microscopy (POM). The metal films are characterized by low-angle and wide-angle XRD, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

Mesoporous silica with Ia3d cubic structure and good thermal stability.

Ia3d cubic mesoporous silica with unusual thermal stability has been synthesized using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and sugar surfactant dodecyl-beta-D-maltoside (DM) as co-templates.

A novel palladium-catalyzed coupling of epoxides with allyl bromide mediated by indium(I) chloride: a cascade epoxide rearrangement-carbonyl allylation.

A cascade epoxide rearrangement-aldehyde allylation was developed by using a combination of InCl and reusable heterogeneous mesoporous silica supported palladium catalysts.

Functional nanocomposites prepared by self-assembly and polymerization of diacetylene surfactants and silicic acid.

Conjugated polymer/silica nanocomposites with hexagonal, cubic, or lamellar mesoscopic order were synthesized by self-assembly using polymerizable amphiphilic diacetylene molecules as both structure-directing agents and monomers. The self-assembly procedure is rapid and incorporates the organic monomers uniformly within a highly ordered, inorganic environment. By tailoring the size of the oligo(ethylene glycol) headgroup of the diacetylene-containing surfactant, we varied the resulting self-assembled mesophases of the composite material.