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Pore connectivity effects on the internal surface electric charge of mesoporous silica

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Abstract

Nano-scale confinements within mesoporous systems develop overlapping electric double layers (EDL) such that the existing theoretical models cannot predict the electric potential distributions and resulting surface charges. In addition, ionic conditions undergo local variation through connections between the pore voids and pore throats. For the first time in literature, we studied the charging behavior of mesoporous silica in terms of the pore to throat size ratio (Rpt) to characterize the pore connectivity effects, in addition to porosity (є) and pore size (H). Both local and average surface charge densities inside mesoporous silica were examined by varying these parameters systematically. Results showed that the magnitude of surface charge density decreased with increasing EDL overlap and decreasing connectivity effects. We formulized this behavior and developed an extended model to predict mesoporous silica’s internal charge as a function of porosity, pore size, and pore to throat size ratio.

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Abbreviations

EDL:

Electric double layer

BD:

Boltzmann distribution

PNP:

Poisson-Nernst-Planck

CR:

Charge regulation

REV:

Representative elementary volume

H :

Pore size

R pt :

Pore to throat size ratio

c10 :

Bulk concentration of H+

c20 :

Bulk concentration of K+

c30 :

Bulk concentration of Cl−

c40 :

Bulk concentration of OH−

ε :

Porosity

λ :

Debye length

κ :

Debye-Hückel parameter

ε 0 :

Permitivity of vacuum

ε r :

Dielectric constant

k B :

Boltzmann constant

T :

Temperature

N A :

Avagadro constant

e:

Elementary charge

ci :

Local concentration of the ith ion

z i :

Valance of the ith ion

Ψ :

Electric potential

N i :

Flux density

D:

Diffusivity

F:

Faraday constant

R:

Universal gas constant

Γ:

Site density

KA, KB :

Equilibrium constants

σ:

Surface charge density

AR:

Aspect ratio of the solid parts

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) under the Grant Number 118M710. Authors also would like to thank the Center for Scientific Computation at Southern Methodist University.

Funding

This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) under the Grant Number 118M710

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  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Izmir Institute of Technology, 35430, Izmir, Turkey

    Tumcan Sen & Murat Barisik

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  1. Tumcan Sen
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Correspondence to Murat Barisik.

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Sen, T., Barisik, M. Pore connectivity effects on the internal surface electric charge of mesoporous silica. Colloid Polym Sci 297, 1365–1373 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-019-04555-w

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