Congratulations to Ibrahim Al-Nutaifi, who recently passed his PhD examination, on the publication of his article in the American Chemical Society (ACS) journal Chem & Bio Engineering, written with Dr Nidhi Kapil and Prof. Marc-Olivier Coppens.
Ordered mesoporous silica, SBA-15, with controlled pore diameter in the range of approximately 5-20 nm, has uses in catalysis, drug delivery, adsorption, and membrane separations. However, it is conventionally produced in batches that take hours to days to manufacture, and synthesis is difficult to scale up. This new article presents a continuous manufacturing alternative, based on aerosol-assisted evaporation-induced self-assembly (AA-EISA). The precursor solution, containing silica precursors and surfactants, is atomised into droplets, which are carried through a heated reactor, where evaporation of the solvent drives an ordered hybrid structure, including silica around surfactant micelles, to form inside each droplet within seconds. The process leads to spherical particles with a tuneable nanostructure in a single continuous operation. Ordered mesoporosity is formed after calcination, which removes the surfactants. The AA-EISA setup was built in-house.
The paper also shows how ethanol content, pH, template loading, and reactor temperature govern the resulting pore structure and particle morphology, and identifies conditions that require less ethanol, acid, and heat than earlier recipes, making the process safer, more energy efficient, and more sustainable.
The work was supported by Saudi Aramco, with further funding from EPSRC through a “Frontier Engineering: Progression” award.
Read the paper here: Continuous Production of Mesoporous Silica with Controlled Structure via Aerosol-Assisted Evaporation-Induced Self-Assembly
Reference: I.A. Alnutaifi, N. Kapil, and M.-O. Coppens, 2026. Continuous Production of Mesoporous Silica with Controlled Structure via Aerosol-Assisted Evaporation-Induced Self-Assembly. ACS Chem & Bio Eng. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cbe.6c00038
