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Aluminum-containing plugged mesoporous silica has been successfully prepared in an aqueous solution that contains triblock copolymer templates, nitrates, and silica sources but without using mineral acid. The acidity of the solution can be finely tuned from pH 1.4 to 2.8 according to the amount of the introduced aluminum species which ranged from an Al/Si molar ratio of 0.25/1 to 4.0/1. The aluminum nitrate additive in the starting mixture, along with the weak acidity produced by the nitrates, contributes to the formation of plugged hexagonal structures and the introduction of different amounts of aluminum species into the mesostructure. Characterization by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and N 2 sorption measurements show that the Al-containing plugged silicas possess well-ordered hexagonal mesostructures with high surface areas (700-860 m 2 g -1 ), large pore volume (0.77-1.05 cm 3 g -1 ) and, more importantly, combined micropores and/or small mesopores in the cylindrical channels. Inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry results show that 0.7-3.0 wt % aluminum can be introduced into the final samples. 27 Al MAS NMR results display that about 43-60% aluminum species are incorporated into the skeleton of the Al-containing silicas and the amount of the framework aluminum increases as the initial added nitrates rises. Scanning electron microscopy images reveal that the directly synthesized Al-containing plugged silica has a similar morphology to that of traditional SBA-15. Furthermore, the Al-containing plugged samples have excellent performances in the adsorption and the catalytic decomposition of isopropyl alcohol and nitrosamine. Finally, the direct synthesis method is used to produce plugged mesoporous silicas that contain other metals such as chromium and copper, and the resultant samples also show good catalytic activities.

Solid-state grinding is a simple and effective method to include guest species into the channels of ordered mesoporous materials with a different degree of filling. After calcination, a monolayer or several monolayers of guest species can not only form highly dispersed oxide species and other surface species on the hosts whether the template is occluded in the channels or not, but the guest species can also fill the mesoporous channels in the host and thus lead to nanowires or nanoarrays. Solid-state salt inclusion is faster and more convenient than other inclusion routes. The absence of a solvent not only saves the time otherwise needed for evaporation but also leads to a higher degree of filling through a simple inclusion step as the void space in the pores is not occupied by the solvent. Also, the lack of competitive adsorption of solvent molecules enhances the interaction between the guest species included and the silica wall, which facilitates the high dispersion of oxide species. However, host–guest interactions that are too strong may disturb the self-crystallization of guest species in the mesopores leading to imperfect nanocasting of the mesostructure.