Morphosynthesis of microskeletal silica spheres templated by W/O microemulsion

AOT containing water-in-oil (W/O) microemulsion was used as an organized reaction environment for silica preparation originating from hydrolysis and crosslink of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS). The nucleation and growth of skeletal silica shperes with a diameter of 40 μm were synthesized in association with microemulsion. Study on the structure and morphology, principally by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), indicates that the final product is subject to the composition of microemulsion and aging time. A possible mechanism involving collision and fusion among large quantities of droplets covered by surfactant molecules was proposed here, attempting to describe the growth of the network structured silica spheres.