Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticle Synthesis

Rachel Jones and Jonathan Duhon

Background

Used for drug delivery due to large surface area and pore size.

Acts as a drug carrier for many types of medicine due to low toxicity.

Able to selectively target affective organs, while sparing normal tissue.

Load high amount of drugs, due to pore and physical size.

Materials

Round bottom flask (1000 mL)

Hot plate

1 g of CTAB (surfactant)

Oil bath

4 g of NaOH in 50 mL of H2O [2M]

Centrifuge tubes

Centrifuge machine

Sonicator

Syringe

TEO5

Observations pt. 1

Homogeneous mixture of water, NaOH,

and TEO5 inside an oil bath, atop hot plate

Observations pt. 2

4 g of NaOH inside 50 mL of H2O encapsulated inside

centrifuge tube (M=[2])

Observations pt. 3

Main centrifuge machine

Observations pt. 4

Mini centrifuge machine

Observations Pt. 5

Solution of Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles

Inside centrifuge tube

Procedure Pt. 1 (Create “ordered” and “structured” nanoparticles inside solution)

1. Fill round bottom flask with 480 mL of water and set in oil bath to heat (82.6 degrees Celsius)

2. While round bottom flask is being heated, put 1 g of CTAB inside flask

3. Prepare a solution of 4 g of NaOH inside 50 mL of water, then put 3.5 mL of the solution inside round bottom flask

4. Stir and heat for 45 minutes

5. Add 5 mL of TEO5 slowly into flask

6. Stir and heat for 2 h

Procedure Pt. 2 (Calculate concentration of nanoparticles in solution)

1. Take solution inside round bottom flask, and put into centrifuge tubes, to then be placed inside centrifuge machine

2. Place centrifuge tubes inside machine for 3 m at 13000 rpm, then dispose of any excess ethanol

3. Fill up empty centrifuge tubes with ethanol up to the 20 mL mark, and then sonicate to create homogeneous mixture

4. Repeat until left with 2 centrifuge tubes

5. Weigh 2 separate mini centrifuge tubes, for mass, and fill with solution from previous centrifuge tubes.

6. Put in lyophilizer for 24 h to extract ethanol, then weight mini centrifuge tube to subtract the final mass from the initial mass

Procedure Pt. 3 (Obtain mesoporous silica nanoparticles)

1. Replace ethanol with methanol inside centrifuge tubes, and then sonicate to disperse the solid

2. Put solution inside a 200 mL round bottom flask and then add 11.52 mL of HCl

3. Heat solution at 60 degrees Celsius in oil bath.