A group of researchers from the Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences and the University of Lorraine, CNRS in France, conducted studies on the ASTRA line at the SOLARIS Centre. In their publication “Revealing the molecular structure of copper phosphonate groups anchored inside SBA-15 silica channels: Theoretical and experimental study,” they described the local geometry of copper cations immobilized by phosphonate groups in the mesoporous silica pores.
Mesoporous silica provides a versatile platform for creating a new generation hybrid inorganic organic mesoporous materials with pores accommodate distinct organometallic moieties,SBA-15 with propyl phosphonic acid, which serves as anchoring units for two-valent metal ions like copper can be considered a potential candidate in many industrial applications. Rerearchers have demonstrated previously that SBA-propyl-Cu can exhibit quite good Non-linear optical (NLO) response that can be tuned by changing the concentration of the functional unit inside the silica scaffold more over the same material exhibits strong biocidal properties which can be explained by the catalytic action of the copper ion that effectively converts O2 into the O2* radical,this radical promotes oxidative damage to biomolecules.
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Image: Magnitude of Fourier transform of the EXAFS plotted vs radial distance of the central copper atom to other elements (R). The presented experimental spectrum was juxtaposed with the theoretical fit draw based on two theoretical models (presented at the right) with the assumed contribution and the signals typical for the assumed paths (a).