Novel mesoporous crumpled paper-like silica balls

In this paper, we developed a single-step sol–gel-hydrothermal method to synthesize novel mesoporous crumpled paper-like silica balls with a relatively large surface area of 602 m2 g−1 and high pore volume of 0.97 cm3 g−1. XRD, FT-IR, FE-SEM, TEM, TGA-DTA, and N2 adsorption–desorption techniques were used to characterize the sample. It is worth commenting that, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the facile synthesis of mesoporous silica balls composed of unique crumpled paper-like thin films. This synthesized mesoporous silica can find its way into many applications in fields of catalysis, adsorption, extraction, and drug delivery, considering its favorable physicochemical properties.