Simple Synthetic Process of PEG-Silica Hybrid Particles Using Remodeled Sol-Gel Reaction of PEGME-IPTES Precursors In Aqueous Solution

Abstract

A facile synthesis method using one-step sol-gel reaction in aqueous solution is designed in this study. The remodeled sol-gel process is used because it is particularly well suited to create hybrid silica materials and because the particles are formed at low temperature, at which organic groups are not degraded. On the contrary to the general sol-gel methods,our remodeled sol-gel process for hybrid silica particles just needs polymer-silane monomers(PEGME-IPTES,Mw. of PEG:750,2000) without other precursors such as tetramethyl orthosilicate(TMOS), tetraethyl or-thosilicate(TEOS),and tetrapropyl orthosilicate (TPOS). The size of obtained particles is changed from 0.42㎛ to 1.79㎛,depending on the concentration of PEGME-IPTES precursor in the presence of NH40H(Fig.1).Also,hybrid particles contain maximum 60wt.% PEG polymer and have the surface area of 7.5 m2g-1. Thermal stability of PEG polymer in hybrid particles largely increases compared with free PEG polymer and PEG polymer in PEG-grafted silica particles. The morphology of particles was investigated by SEM,nitrogen adsorption,TGA analysis,and FT-IR.