Background

Mesoporous silica (MCM-41) has a structure with pores oriented in a hexagonal form. Its distinguishing feature is its large specific surface area, and it has applications in areas such as production of catalyst materials and adsorbents. The unit cell of this sort of hexagonal structure is determined by measuring the d values for lattice plane spacing. If the observed d values of the peaks (long period peaks) derived from the periodic structure have the relative ratios 1:0.577:0.5, then it can be inferred that the structure is hexagonal.