the gas phase though it is not limited to the capture of this material and is seen as a useful new method for metal vapor capture the synthesis procedures used is described and detailed characterization data are reported the substrate used in this study is silica gel grade 62 with a mesh size of 60 200 and an average pore size of 150 u00e5 davison chemical maryland usa nitric acid sulfuric acid hydrochloric acid dichloromethane potassium chloride and toluene were purchased from fisher scientific pittsburgh pa dichloromethane 3 aminopropyltriethoxysilane apts disodium hydrogen phosphate glutaraldehyde 50 wt in water cysteine hydrochloride monohydrate anhydrous borax sodium borohydride and 6 aminocaproic acid 6 aa were purchased from sigma aldrich inc milwaukee wis the molten salt methylpolyoxyethylene 15 octadecanammonium chloride mec was a gift from akzo nobel chemicals mccook ill all chemicals were used as received except toluene was dried with 4 u00e5 molecular sieves fisher scientific pittsburgh pa prior to use five grams of silica gel were dried overnight in a vacuum oven at 170 u00b0 c the silica was then hydroxylated under total reflux in a mixture of 25 ml of 6 m nitric acid and 25 ml of 6 m sulfuric acid at 100 u00b0 c for 12 h the residue was washed with distilled water by decantation until a neutral ph was achieved and then dried overnight in a vacuum oven at 110 u00b0 c cysteine was selected as the chelating agent and bonded in a self.