•In situ monitoring of mechanochemical formation 2D covalent organic frameworks•Experimental evidence templating effect by liquid additive•Relevance additive selection, catalyst choice, and activation procedure Covalent frameworks (COFs) are materials increasing interest due to their structural diversity, molecular precision, promise for applications in gas storage, optoelectronics, catalysis, ...

Alvinellid polychaete worms form multilayered organic tubes in the hottest and most rapidly growing areas of deep-sea hydrothermal vent chimneys. Over short periods of time, these tubes can become entirely mineralized within this environment. Documenting the nature of this process in terms of the stages of mineralization, as well as the mineral textures and end products that result, is essentia...

The structure of the mesoporous silica SBA-16 has been interrogated by careful elimination of the organic templating agent using ozone treatment. It is shown that the as-synthesised material consists of large cages connected by very narrow, ca. 7 Å, windows. These windows open up to about 20 Å following a calcination treatment that suggests that the functionality of SBA-16 could be changed mark...

Porous solids with organized multiple porosity are of scientific and technological importance for broadening the application range from traditional areas of catalysis and adsorption/separation to drug release and biomedical imaging. Synthesis of crystalline porous materials offering a network of uniform micro- and mesopores remains a major scientific challenge. One strategy is based on variatio...

Growth of CdS was studied in three different liquid crystalline phases demonstrating the versatility of liquid crystal templating of inorganic solids. Semiconductor growth in a hexagonal liquid crystal yielded a nanostructure with hexagonal symmetry, a lamellar liquid crystal yielded a lamellar nanostructure, and a cubic liquid crystal (consisting of spherical micelles) yielded a hollow, spheri...

We compare the methods of continuous solvent (Soxhlet) and supercritical solvent extractions for the removal of the organic template from nanostructured silica monoliths. Our monoliths are formed by templating the L3 liquid crystal phase of cetylpyridinium chloride in aqueous solutions with tetramethoxy silane. The monoliths that result from both Soxhlet and supercritical extraction methods are...

Molecular imprinting is a method of inducing molecular recognition properties in synthetic polymers in response to the presence of a template species during formation of the three-dimensional structure of the polymer. The molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) prepared in this way have been termed "plastic antibodies" and combine the robustness of the polymer scaffold with binding properties mor...