Study of the influence of dynamics variables on the growth of silica nanoparticles

ABSTRACT

In this work ²⁹Si nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were used to analyze in situ the formation process of silica nanoparticles from basic catalyzed hydrolysis of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) in ethanol and methanol. It was observed that the rate of hydrolysis depends on the pH of the solution and not on the solvent type, and that silanols groups are always present in the process. Deconvolution of the Si-O-Si Stretching vibrational absorption, commonly seen as a big band in SiO₂, reveal be more sensitive with EtOH solvent. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results demonstrated that the particles are uniformly spherical and well shaped.

KEYWORDS:

• Sol-gel
• silica particle
• tetraethoxysilane
• Stöber method

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge for the Carolina Foundation for the opportunity of interact with research center of Spain.

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Federal University of ABC. Financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (Projects Consolider-Ingenio in Molecular Nanoscience and CTQ-2011-26507), and the Generalitat Valenciana (Prometeo Program) are gratefully acknowledged.