Rapid evaporation-induced synthesis of monodisperse budded silica spheres.

Budded silica spheres have been synthesized by a novel rapid evaporation-induced self-assembly combined with the well-known Stöber method. The morphology of budded silica spheres were examined by transmission electron microscopy, and their mean size and size distribution were also estimated. Both the temperature of the sol-gel reaction and following post-treatment were found to play crucial roles in determining the surface morphology of obtained silica spheres and the yield of budded silica spheres. The possible formation mechanism was also proposed on the basis of experimental observations. The budded silica spheres would have higher surface areas than smooth silica spheres, and significant potentials for catalyst supports, building blocks of photonic crystals, and for constructing superhydrophobic and superhydrophilic surfaces.