Formation Mechanism of Silica Particles with Dendritic Structure

The silica particles having a dendritic structure (kcc-1) synthesized by the biphase method are a novel porous material. In this work, the effect of the disturbance state at the oil-water biphase interface on the reaction was investigated. The experimental results showed that when the oil-water biphase interface was in an absolute state of quiescence, no silica particles could be obtained regardless of the temperature of 70 degrees C or 140 degrees C were used for reaction. However, when there was a disturbance in the oil-water biphase interface, whether the disturbance was a very slight disturbance caused by convection or a severe disturbance due to agitation, porous silica particles with kcc-1 structure could be prepared. Based on the above experimental results, we propose that the formation mechanism of kcc-1 particles mainly includes the following three steps: (1) interface disturbance induces deformation of surfactant molecules to form micelles; (2) deformation of micelles leads to hydrolysis of tetraethyl orthosilicate; (3) the micelles modified with silica form a porous silica particle having a kcc-1 structure through cooperative interaction.