Preparing and Studying Optical Properties of Silica Nano Powder

Abstract

Silica nanoparticles is one of the most important materials utilized in many applications and industries, it is mainly used in glass industry and in electronic devices such as Nanotransistors and Nanosensors. In the present study, preparation of silicon dioxide nanoparticles from natural sands was conducted by Alkali fusion method, samples are taken from different areas (Shandi, Dongla, western Bara, southern Bara), in Sudan, and characterize the optical properties of these samples. The alkali media method was performed on each sample, the sand was immersed in hydrochloric acid HCl using magnetic stirrer-hotplate, then certain amount of sodium hydroxide NaOH was mixed with crude silica sand very well and heated until the mixture became liquid and stiffened again, then dissolved with water, and filtered, after that the sulfuric acid was added to the resulting mixture to form . It turned out that the extraction and synthesis of nanoparticles by means of alkali-fusion method proved that it is successful method in forming silica nanoparticles; the obtained was characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), and through Ultraviolet-visible spectrometry (UV). FT-IR spectral data confirmed the chemical functional groups which are present in every silica nanoparticles and different functional groups were reported for each sample, UV spectra proved that different impurities that exist in each silica sands of different locations have influence on optical properties, the result was that the energy band gap of increases as we go north and decreases as we go south in geographical location.