Influence of chemical and bio-surfactants on physiochemical properties in mesoporous silica nanoparticles synthesis

The present study pointedly investigates the synthesis of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (sol–gel method) using four different surfactants (biosurfactants, CTAB, SDS and tween-80) under mild condition, was characterized by XRD (Low and wide angle), FTIR, FESEM, HRTEM, UV-VIS-NIR and XPS. The amorphous character of mesoporous silica (22.77O and 21.69O; XRD), hexagonal array with long-range ordered mesopores (SAXS), highest percentage of purity (47.9 and 56.09%; HRTEM-EDXS), perfect spherical shape with particle size (162 and 286 nm; FESEM), significant linkage of Si–O–Si (XPS) and absorption wavelength (271 and 262 nm; UV-VIS-NIR) affirmed with interesting outcomes in case of tween-80 and biosurfactant respectively, as compare to CTAB and SDS-mediated silica nanoparticles. In addition, the band gap of biosurfactant (5.29eV) and Tween-80 (3.78eV) mediated nanoparticles was also remarked lower as compare to other two surfactants as-synthesized nanoparticles. The promising formed silica nanoparticles could be greatly recommended to execute in heavy metals treatment, dye removal, anticancer activity, antioxidant activity, drug delivery, energy storage, etc.