American Journal of Analytical Chemistry, 2021, 12, 446-457
https://www.scirp.org/journal/ajac
ISSN Online: 2156-8278
ISSN Print: 2156-8251
DOI: 10.4236/ajac.2021.1211028 Nov. 30, 2021 446 American Journal of Analytical Chemistry
Controlling the Shape, Pore Size and Surface
Area of Prepared Mesoporous Silica Particles
by Altering the Molar Concentration of
Tetramethoxysilane
Mohammed M. Algaradah
Department of Chemistry, King Khalid Military Academy, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Abstract
In recent days, the applications of silica-based nanoparticles have gained
much attention. The preparation of mesoporous silicas is usually achieved via
the modified Stöber method, the reaction attained by the hydrolysis and con-
densation of silica precursors present within a medium containing template,
solvent, deionized water (DI-W) and base. Therefore, the current study aimed
to prepare and characterize mesoporous silicas by using tetramethoxysilane
(TMOS) as silica precursor and ethylene glycol (Et-G) as solvent. The study
was based on the template dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide (C
12
TMABr)
and sodium hydroxide used as an alkaline agent. Mesoporous silicas were
prepared in various batches based on TMOS molar concentration, ionized wa-
ter, NaOH, and other solvents. The characterization of mesoporous silicas was
achieved based on their specific surface area, pore size distribution and
morphology using different instruments: Brunauer, Emmett & Teller (BET),
scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectros-
copy (FT-IR), and thermalgravimetric analysis (TGA). The study revealed that
shape, average particle sizes “35 to 550 nm”, average pore radius “1.62 - 4.5
nm” and surface area “350 - 1204 m
2
∙g
−1
” of obtained mesoporous silica par-
ticles were altered based on precursor concentration and other factors. There-
fore, it is important to get the most suitable concentration of all chemicals in
the preparation of mesoporous silicas to control the particle characteristics to
use them upon their further applications. This is the baseline study that pro-
vides details regarding prepared silica particles with controlled characteris-
tics, and more studies related to its applications are still in process.
How to cite this paper: Algaradah, M.M.
(2021) Controlling the Shape, Pore Size and
Surface Area of Prepared Mesoporous Silica
Particles by Altering the Molar Concentra-
tion of Tetramethoxysilane. American Jour-
nal of Analytical Chemistry, 12, 446-457.
https://doi.org/10.4236/ajac.2021.1211028
Received: October 25, 2021
Accepted: November 27, 2021
Published: November 30, 2021
Copyright © 2021 by author(s) and
Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution International
License (CC BY 4.0).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Open Access