Synthesis of Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) Nanowires via a Polyethylene Glycol-Based Emulsion Template Method in Isopropanol

Typical wet-chemical methods for the preparation of silica nanowires use polyvinylpyrrolidone and n-pentanol. This study presents a polyethylene glycol-based emulsion template method for the synthesis of SiO₂ nanowires (SiO₂NWs) in isopropanol. By systematically optimizing key parameters (type of solvent, polyethylene glycol molecular weight and dosage, dosage of sodium citrate, ammonium and tetraethyl orthosilicate, incubation temperature and time), SiO₂NWs with diameters about 530 nm were obtained. Replacing polyvinylpyrrolidone with polyethylene glycol enabled anisotropic growth in isopropanol, overcoming the dependency on traditional solvents like n-pentanol. Scale-up experiments (10× volume) demonstrated robust reproducibility, yielding nanowires with consistent morphology (~580 nm diameter). After calcination at 500 °C for 1 h, the morphology of the nanowires did not change significantly.