Interaction of chitosan with tetraethyl orthosilicate on the formation of silica nanoparticles: Effect of pH and chitosan concentration

In this paper, we report the interaction of chitosan with tetraethyl orthosilicate on the formation of silica nanoparticles under different conditions of pH (5–9) and chitosan concentration (0–0.001379 mM). The silica nanoparticles were characterized by means of N2-sorption, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. It was found that chitosan played two different roles on the formation of silica nanoparticles, depending on the pH values. At a low chitosan concentration, chitosan promoted the formation of larger silica nanoparticles in the pH range of 5–6, while it reduced the size of silica nanoparticles when the pH value was increased to the range of 6.5–8.5. However, based on the results of N2-sorption analysis, two different sizes of silica nanoparticles caused by the growth of silica at different phases were observed. At high chitosan concentration, the size of silica nanoparticles continuously increased in the pH range of 5–6, while only smaller size of silica nanoparticles was obtained in the pH range of 6.5–8.5. At pH 9, chitosan molecules were found to have no significant effect on the formation of silica nanoparticles even though a large amount of chitosan was employed.