We have investigated the possibility of controlling the rate of solvent diffuion in a silica based sol-gel matrix by doping various sizes of nano particles or by varying the diffusion temperature. Initially, the diffusion rate of an aqueous acid solution was investigated as a function of gold nanocolloidal dopants of various sizes ranging between 5 nm and 100 nm. We observed that the diffusion rate depends on the dopant's size and that the maximum rate was observed at a dopant size of 15 nm. The matching of the average size of the �channels� connecting cavities with the size of the dopant was considered to minimize the hindrance of the solvent flow. In addition, the diffusion rate of an acid in an ethyl-violet dye encapsulated sol-gel matrix was examined for a temperature range between 15 and 75 oC. We did not observe a significant temperature dependence in the diffusion rates. This implies that the sizes of cavities as well as the channels remained the same within the tested temperature range.

Controlling solvent diffusion rate in silica based sol�gel matrix

248th National Meeting (2014)

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