Functional Group Coverage and Conversion Quantification in Nanostructured Silica by 1H NMR

Silica nanostructured materials are irriportant in many fields, including catalysis, imaging, and drug delivery, mainly due lo the versatility of surface functionalization that can bestow a huge variety of chemical and physical properties. With most applications requiring precise control, over this, surface modification, characterization of surface composition and reactivity have 'become of extreme importance. We present a, novel approach to, track-,silica surface modification and quantify functional group coverage 'using only solution NMR. We testthe method using different types of silica nanoparticles and surface modifications, to show that after dissolving the silica matrix, the H NMR spectra can be resolved for every single component of the mixture. By using an internal standard, we are able to quantify the density of ligands and follow their sequential modification, Our work presents a fast, accurate, and straightforward method for surfae characterization of silica nanostructures, using widely available NMR spectrcistniy and small amounts of sample.