Functional SiO(2)-TiO(2)-PEG hybrid resin by direct chelation with catecholic compound

Abstract

The mesoporous inorganic-organic SiO2-TiO2-PEG hybrid resin systems with various useful functionalities were directly synthesized by a binary sol-gel reaction of TEOS-TiCl4 and the subsequent chelation with a chatecholic compound (dihydroxy benzene), dihydroxy-m-benzenedisulfonic acid disodium salt, on the surface Ti ion of the ordered mesoporous SBA-15 network structure, respectively. Moreover, the hybrid resins consisting of polyethylene glycol and a silane coupling agent exhibited the controlled wettability, excellent coating processibility on various substrates with strong abrasion resistance. Furthermore, the transparent and low viscous resin showed the successful performance to fabricate various nanoscale patterns with the feature size down to 170 nm by imprint lithography. Based on the excellent patternability, nanofluidics with 100 nm of the narrowest dimension channel height was fabricated to employ a capillary electrophoresis for separation DNAs without gel matrix. In addition, the presence of sulfonic acid in the resin also showed the solid acid catalytic performance. These results reveal that the developed hybrid materials are very useful as an imprint resin as well as versatile microchemical applications.