Uniform and size-tunable mesoporous silica with fibrous morphology for drug delivery

A family of mesoporous silica microspheres with fibrous morphology and different particle sizes ranging from about 400 to 900 nm has been successfully synthesized through a facile self-assembly process. The structural, morphological, and textural properties of the samples were well characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), N-2 adsorption/desorption, and thermal gravimetry (TG). The results reveal that this silica-based mesoporous material exhibits excellent physical properties, including a fibrous spherical morphology, good thermal stability, large pore volume, high specific surface area and narrow size distribution. Additionally, the size and textural properties can be tuned by altering the silica precursor/template molar ratio. The formation and the self-assembly evolution process have also been proposed. The obtained materials were further used as a drug delivery carrier to investigate the in vitro drug release properties using doxorubicin (DOX) as a representative model drug. It was found that this kind of silica exhibits good biocompatibility and obvious sustained drug release properties, suggesting its potential application in biological fields.