A Versatile Synthesis Platform Based on Polymer Cubosomes for A Library of Highly Ordered Nanoporous Metal Oxides Particles.

Polymer cubosomes (PCs) have well-defined inverse bicontinuous cubic mesophases formed by amphiphilic block copolymer bilayers. The open hydrophilic channels, large periods and robust physical properties of PCs are advantageous to many host-guest interactions and yet not fully exploited, especially in the fields of functional nanomaterials. Here, we systematically investigate the self-assembly of poly(ethylene oxide)-block-polystyrene block copolymers and develop a series of robust PCs via a cosolvent method. Ordered nanoporous metal oxide particles are obtained by selectively filling the hydrophilic channels of PCs via an impregnation strategy, followed by a two-step thermal treatment at high temperatures. Based on this versatile PCs platform, we demonstrate the general synthesis of a library of ordered porous particles with different pore structures (Pm 3 ¯ $\bar{3}$ m and Fd 3 ¯ $\bar{3}$ m), tunable large pore size (18-78 nm) and periodicity (36.1-92.4 nm), high specific surface areas (up to 123.3 m 2 ·g -1 for WO 3 ) and diverse framework compositions, such as transition and non-transition metal oxides, rare earth chloride oxides, perovskite, pyrochlore and high-entropy metal oxides. As typical materials obtained via this method, ordered porous WO 3 particles have advantages of highly opened continuous structure and semiconducting properties, thus showing superior gas sensing performances towards hydrogen sulfide, a typical toxic gas that threatens the environment. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.