The Study of Formation Mechanism of the Ordered Mesoporous Silica from Low Angle X-ray Scattering Experiments

The mesoporous silica materials find important applications in stimuli responsive drug delivery devices as biocompatible due to high surface area, large pore volume and tunable pore diameter. The large surface area of the mesoporous silica and its biocompatibility are the two major factors beyond its vast in vivo and in vitro applications. The present study considers three different types of commercially available silica namely, glass silica, nano silica and mesoporous silica (that already contained ordered pores) for the investigation of structural aspects responsible for formation of pores within the nano particles. The purpose of the work was to study the formation mechanism of the pores in mesoporous silica. It was observed that crystallite sizes and lattice strain are the two important structural parameters responsible for the formation of pores within the nano silica. Results reveal that the mesoporous silica has the critical crystallite size and the nano particles are under highly strained condition compared to the other silica samples. So this high lattice strain and crystallite size may be the key factors for the formation of pores within the nanoparticles under certain condition.