0000000000087942
AUTHOR
Vincenzo Ardizzone
Sintering process of amorphous SiO2 nanoparticles investigated by AFM, IR and Raman techniques
We report an experimental investigation on the effects of thermal treatments at different temperatures (room-1270 K) and for different duration (0-75 h) on amorphous silica nanoparticles (fumed silica) in powder tablet form. Three types of fumed silica are considered, comprising nearly spherical particles of 40 nm, 14 nm and 7 nm mean diameter. The experimental techniques used here are Raman and infrared absorption (IR) spectroscopy together with atomic force microscopy (AFM). Raman and IR spectra indicate that the structure of nanometer silica particles is significantly different with respect to that of a bulk silica glass. In particular, the main differences regard the positions of the IR…
Atomic force microscopy and Raman investigation on the sintering process of amorphous SiO2 nanoparticles
We report an experimental investigation on the sintering process induced in fumed silica powders by isochronal thermal treatments at T=1270 K. Three types of fumed silica are considered, consisting of amorphous SiO2 (a-SiO2) particles with mean diameters 7, 14, and 40 nm. The study is performed by atomic force microscopy (AFM), to follow the morphological changes, and by Raman scattering, to obtain information on the concomitant structural modifications. The former method indicates that the sintering process proceeds by aggregation of single particles into larger grains, whose sizes increase with the thermal treatment duration. Furthermore, for each fumed silica type considered, the quantit…