Porous Silica Particles: Synthesis, Physicochemical Characterization and Evaluation of Suspension Stability

This work reports about the synthesis and/or physicochemical characterization of five important types of porous silica particles with different characteristic properties. The instrumental characterization includes transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to study particle structure and size, porosimetry (nitrogen adsorption-desorption) to determine specific surface area (SSA), pore diameter and pore volume, dynamic light scattering (DLS) to measure hydrodynamic diameter and zeta potential, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) to calculate the weight loss percentage upon programmed heating. Aggregation kinetics profiles of bare porous silica particles have been studied with DLS to check their suspension stability. The characterization data presented are critical to compare the properties of synthesized porous silicas with those of reported or newly synthesized porous silica particles and to modulate the performance of mesoporous silica particles according to the applications under study.