Mesoporous materials with uniform pores and high specific areas are used in many fields including catalysts, separation and adsorbents, etc. In order to find faster and more economical synthesis routes, the use of microwave heating was deeply studied. Compared to the hydrothermal method, microwave energy can heat the samples to crystallization temperature rapidly and uniformly result in homogeneous nucleation and shorten crystallization time. The basic principles of microwave assisted synthesis and advantages of microwave heating, and the obtained progress concerning ordered mesoporous materials through microwave synthesis were summarized.
Chloropropyl-functionalized mesoporous MCM-41（MCM-41-（CH2）3Cl） was synthesized in alkaline medium by the microwave radiation one-pot method, using cetyltrimethy-lammoniumbromide （CTAB） as novel template, tetraethoxysilane （TEOS） as silica source, and chloropropyltriethoxysilane （C1PTES） as the coupling agent. The microstructure of MCM-41-（CH2）3Cl was characterized by the means of X-ray diffraction （XRD）, nitrogen absorption-desorption, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy （FT-IR）, scanning electron microscopy （SEM）, and transmission electron microscopy （TEM）. The results show that a successful synthesis of MCM-41-（CH2）3Cl with well structure is obtained. The optimal microwave power is 120 W and the best microwave time is 50 rain. The dosage of chloropropyltriethoxysilane on the structure of chloropropyl-functionalzed MCM-41 was also investigated. It is found that the chloropropyltriethoxysilane volume between 0.8 mL and 1.6 mL is favorable for the formation of highly ordered MCM-41-（CH2）3Cl mesostructure.
