Salt-Templated Mesoporous Solids Comprised of Interlinked Polyoxovanadate Clusters

The utility of molten salts has been demonstrated in the synthesis of the first family of mesoporous salt-inclusion solids featuring [V4O16] and [V5O17] polyoxovanadate (POV) units interlinked by As5+ cations. Despite a high-temperature synthesis, these new solids exhibit unusually porous (∼2-nm-diameter) vanadium arsenate frameworks. Disordered metal chloride salts reside inside the pores, leading to relatively large voids (up to ∼7.2% of the unit cell volume), which were confirmed by surface area (SA) measurements of the as-prepared polycrystalline samples (∼90−110 m2/g). Given the potential utility of porous POV-containing materials, efforts were made to study changes in the SAs (showing ∼35−70% increases) upon salt removal and redox chemistry.