Synthesis of size controlled spherical silica nanoparticles via sol-gel process within hydrophilic solvent

In this study, based on hydrolysis and condensation via Stöber process of sol-gel method, synthesis of mono-dispersed silica nanoparticles was carried out with hydrophilic solvent. This operation was expected to be a more simplified process than that with organic solvent. Based on the sol-gel method, which involves simply controlling the particle size, the particle size of the synthesized silica specimens were ranged from 30 to 300 nm by controlling the composition of tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS), DI water and ammonia solution, and by varying the stirring speeds while maintaining a fixed amount of ethanol. Increasing the content of DI water and decreasing the content of ammonia caused the particle size to decrease, while controlling the stirring speed at a high level of RPMs enabled a decrease of the particle size. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) were utilized to investigate the success factors for synthesizing process; Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) was used to study the effects of the size and morphology of the synthesized particles. To analyze the dispersion properties, zeta potential and particle size distribution (PSD) analyses were utilized.