The University of Tennessee
Computational Materials Research Group


Metal Decorated Silsesquioxane Structures

This page shows visualizations for Metal Decorated Silsesquioxane Structures. These structures were created by Dr. Nethika Suraweera and Prof. David Keffer in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Tennessee, in collaboration with Prof. Craig Barnes and his research group in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Tennessee. The JavaScript code JSMol is used to view and interact with these structures. Therefore, a modern browser capable of running JavaScript is required. In 2014, Eleanor Leffler updated these pages from Chime to JSMol.

The silsesquioxane matrices have a polymer like structure with silsesquioxane units interconnected by inorganic cross linkers. They have dispersed Ti acting as isolated metal catalytic centers. Interconnected silsesquioxane units provide a nanoporous, high surface area support to the structure. These amorphous structures have 4 different types of atomic groups.

  1. Silsesquioxane cubes consisting of 8 Si atoms and 12 O atoms
  2. SiCl2 bridges that interconnect the cubes
  3. TiCl3 catalytic sites connected to cubes as an end unit
  4. Si(CH3)3 connected to cubes as an end unit

Illustrations for these atomic groups and their connections can be found at following links:
  • Blocks
  • Materials
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