Silica-Based Mesoporous Nanospheres

Abstract

Since the independent discovery of the formation of mesostructured silica using surfactants as structure-directing agents by several groups in the early 1990s, these materials have found important applications in the areas of catalysis and separation technology and, most recently, as biomaterials. Among all the silica-based materials that have been investigated, mesoporous silica nanospheres (MSNs) promise to have great potential for various biomedical applications because of their well-defined structures and surface properties. In this chapter, we first provide a brief history of mesoporous silica materials along with the general synthesis procedure of these materials. This is followed by a description of the synthesis to obtain the mesoporous silica-based microspheres and nanospheres. We also discuss the physical and chemical properties of these materials along with the general techniques used for characterizing them. Particular attention is given to their applications as biomaterials.