Synthesis and characterization of multi-wall silica nanospheres

Multi-wall silica nanospheres have been synthesized from non-ionic surfactant, and TEOS as precursor under acidic and reflux conditions. The wall-to-wall distance inside the “onion-like” texture is close to 10 nm while the nanoscale objects depict polydisperse particle sizes ranging from 80 to 300 nm. Nitrogen physisorption measurement demonstrates a Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) surface area of 691 m2 g−1 associated to a total pore volume of 0.8 cm3 g−1.