History
A procedure for producing mesoporous silica was patented around 1970. It went almost unnoticed and was reproduced in 1997. Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) were independently synthesized in 1990 by researchers in Japan. They were later produced also at Mobil Corporation laboratories and named Mobil Crystalline Materials, or MCM-41.
Six years later, silica nanoparticles with much larger 4.6 to 30 nanometer pores were produced at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The material was named Santa Barbara Amorphous type material, or SBA-15. These particles also have a hexagonal array of pores.
The researches who invented these types of particles planned to use them as molecular sieves. Today, mesoporous silica nanoparticles have many applications in medicine, biosensors, and imaging.
Read more about this topic: Mesoporous Silica
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