In this work, a simple hydrothermal method is presented for fabricating hierarchically porous silica nanocubes using a surfactant-polyelectrolyte template. The formed silica nanocubes possess Pm
n symmetry, which are patterned after organic template and their shape can be easily transformed from solid nanocubes to hollow cubes by controlling the composition of the surfactant-polyelectrolyte template. We have studied the fabrication conditions of silica nanocubes as a function of reaction temperature, reaction time, and the amount of reactants, and proposed a nanoparticle formation mechanism. For drug delivery, the calcined solid and hollow silica nanocubes show high loading capacities of ibuprofen, 362 mg g−1 and 509 mg g−1, respectively. These properties make the hierarchically porous silica nanocubes a promising material for drug delivery.
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