Small-angle scattering study of the porous structure ordering in the mesoporous SBA-15 material

The mesoporous SBA-15 material is studied by small-angle Xray scattering (SAXS). It is shown that in this material, a part of silica exists as non-porous amorphous particles and does not make an ordered porous structure. A new technique is proposed to determine non-porous amorphous silica in ordered mesoporous silica materials. This technique allows the determination of not only the amount of non-porous amorphous silica in a porous matrix, but also its particle size distribution.