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 m(2) g(-1) associated to a total pore volume of 0.8 cm(3) g(-1). (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.