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Mesoporous Silica: Synthesis and Drug Delivery
Introduction
Silica is the most common mineral on Earth and one of the most abundant families
of materials. Silica has been studied for thousands of years and most people would not
expect any revolutionary discovery from Silica. Yet with the advance of nanoscience, we
have been able to open a whole new world of materials made up from our well-known
friend Silica. One of the most notable and interesting Silica materials is nano-mesoporous
silica (MS), which was independently synthesized for the first time in 1990 by researchers in
Japan. Since its first synthesis, it has been widely applied in various applications, including
biosensing, catalytic, templating and, especially, drug delivery. In this paper, I will review the
method to synthesize MS, its special characteristics for drug carrier and three mechanisms of
unloading drug from MS.
Synthesis
There are at least three reported methods to synthesize mesoporous silica with high
yield: Synthesis by Solvent Evaporation
2
, Synthesis from Commercial Copolymers
3
and
Synthesis via Controlled Sol-gel chemistry of Silicon Alkoxide
4
. In the limited scope of this
paper, I will introduce the most traditional and easiest MS synthesis method using Sol-gel
chemistry and several modifications to get a better control of size and accelerate the rate of
reactions.
Sol-gel chemistry is, briefly, the hydrolysis and condensation of alkoxides, M(OR)n
where M is a metal or semi-metal at the oxidation state n and R is an organic group (usually
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ethyl). The sol-gel chemical sequence leads to the formation of M-O-M bonds and the
release of water and alcohol ROH. The process is highly sensitive to humidity (because water
is involved), the nature of the R group and especially the pH of the solution. The pH of the
solution is crucial to this process: it both pushes the reaction forward by catalyzing the
hydrolysis of alkoxides and backward by breaking the desired M-O-M bonds. One of the
limits of sol-gel chemistry is that researchers have to experimentally study the reaction
condition of the interested system in order to make it proceed as desired.
In the case of MS synthesis, the alkoxide used is tetraethoxy orthosilicate (TEOS), Si-
(OC2H5)4. TEOS is dissolved in a water/ethanol mixtures but reacts very slowly with water
at pH = 7. To catalyze the hydrolysis, ammonia is added to the mixture to raise the pH
value. After a few minutes, some condensations happen and create some MS small nuclei,
which are the seeds for the growth of MS. These small seeds, having high negative surface
charge of silica, repel each other minimizing aggregation (Figure 1). It is worth noting that by
controlling the ionic strength of solution, we can control the aggregation of the seeds: high
ionic strength reduces the repulsion between the seeds and leads to more aggregation. Over
the course of reaction, more TEOS are hydrolyzed and condensed into the seeds, leading to
the growth of MS. Due to its highly porous structure, MS has no crystalline facet or any kind
of lattice. Therefore, the growth of MS is not favorable in any direction, which leads to the
formation of a perfectly spherical nanocrystals (Figure 1).The yield of this process is really
high, exceeding 90%
5
, and the product is uniform and spherical MS nanoparticles. (The
SEM image in the left of Figure 1)
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Figure 1. Overview of the sol-gel synthesis of mesoporous silica (MS). In the top right are general
chemical reactions of the synthesis. The sol-gel sequence is depicted in the middle. At the bottom, there are two
SEM images of MS produced by this method: in the left is normal mesoporous silica formed, the figure in the
right shows how a regrowth strategy can lead to partial aggregation of MS during growth. Figure taken from
Ref. 1.
As chemists, we would like to have a good control of our products. In the case of
nanomaterials, size is one of the most important factors to their properties. For this sol-gel
synthesis, we can tune the size of the formed MS by controlling the number of the seeds in
solution (either by controlling the reaction conditions or providing pre-formed seeds) and
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the amount of TEOS molecules available for seeds growth. The advantage of using pre-
formed seeds is that you already know how many seeds you have in the solution and how
many TEOS molecules are available, thus can pre-determine the diameter of MS with less
than 10nm of uncertainty
1
. Moreover, the pre-formed seeds can be other nanoparticles, like
gold nanocrystals (for photothermal therapy) or iron oxide nanocrystals (for imaging),
enabling the creation of multifunctional nano therapeutic system (that we have seen in Ozin
case 2). The main drawback of this approach is the potential aggregation during the growth
(See the SEM image in the right of Figure 1). This problem can be solved using
centrifugation, because the aggregated MS is considerably heavier than the uniform MS.
One different approach to control the size of the formed MS particles is to use
additive agents to adjust the pH of the solution, since pH is crucial to Sol-gel chemistry.
Qiao et al.
5
used different additive agents to adjust the pH (NaOH, HCl, NaH2PO4) and
showed that the initial pH value of the synthesis system is the main factor affecting the
particle size of the product. The TEM images of their synthesized MS showed that the size
of particles increases from 30nm to 85nm with the decrease of pH values from 10 to 6
(Table 1). The explanation for these results goes back to the nature of Silica with Silanol
groups (-Si-OH) on the surface. With high pH values, the Silanol groups get deprotonated
more, creating MS nuclei with greater negative charge. When their net negative charge is
high enough, the MS nuclei refuse to allow new silicate anion to join and thus stopping the
growth. In the case of high pH values, fewer silicate species are needed to create high
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enough net charge density silicate, thus form smaller MS and vice versa.

Table 1. Synthesis, Experimental Parameters and Diameter of MS
4

Besides having uniform and controllable products, a synthesis process need to have a
reasonably fast rate, if it were to be applicable in the industry. Qiao et al
5
used a surfactant
molecule, cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTA
+
-Cl
-
) (which we have seen before in
Murphys work on gold nanorods synthesis), to increase the speed of the reaction. Besides
components of classical sol-gel system (TEOS + EtOH + H20 + NH3), Qiao et al. added
CTA
+
-Cl
-
to the reaction solution and, remarkably, the reaction rates become significantly
faster. (However, they did not report their results in the rate of reaction) This can be
explained by [CTA
+
]s exceptional ability to form stable micelles: the cationic surfactant
micelles attract the negative charged silica species, which concentrate silica species around
the micelle and thus accelerating the reaction.
It is worth noting that the synthesized particles from the sol-gel method have a highly
porous structure, as desired. The condensation process does not need to be complete for the
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particle to be solid. Each silane molecule that makes up the nanoparticles has four silanol
groups (-Si-OH). After the first one or two condensation, these silanol groups are attached
into a rigid structure that makes it harder for these group to find other groups to bond with;
therefore, a large number of these groups dont have the chance to condense, leaving a lot of
empty space inside the particles. This hypothesis is proved by calcination, which is essentially
heating the particles up and making it shrink to smaller size (proving the porous structure).
As the particle is calcinated, the internal stress increases (by the silanol groups trying to
find another group to bond with) then eventually cracks the particles extensively (proving
the rigid structure).
Drug Delivery - Overview
Why is mesoporous silica (MS) so special for drug delivery? Before we can answer
this question, we need to understand the concept of drug delivery, which is relatively simple.
To optimize the efficiency of a drug in treatment, its concentration must remain constant
over a certain period of time and it should be preferably released at or near the site of
interest (for example, a tumor or a cancer cell). Unfortunately, traditional drug that we take
every day does not have these two conditions: its concentration usually shows a peak
followed by a sudden decay and it is delivered by blood in a system wide manner, possibly
risking side effects on other tissues. With the advance of nanoscience, researchers have
developed a series of nanoscaled drug carriers, which can fulfill both conditions mentioned
above: controlled release and targeting specificity allowing a constant release during a certain
period of time at a certain site of interest.
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Among these carriers, MS nanoparticles have stood out as one of the best drug
carriers known. First of all, MS has an excellent biocompatibility due to its intrinsically low
toxicity, the required property of a drug carrier. Researchers have shown that over 90% of
injected MS in mice was and found in urine and feces
6
. That means MS can be safely
eliminated from the biological body. Moreover, mice treated with free MS on a weekly basis
showed no difference in their history and blood analysis compared to normal mice
7
,
signifying the biological safety of using MS. Its biocompatibility makes MS a good drug
carrier, but what makes it an exceptional drug carrier is its rigid platform, yet tunable in size,
shape and surface functionalization. The size and shape of the nanostructure are controllable
in the presented synthesis, thus can be optimized to maximize the cell uptake and increase
drug delivery efficiency. Different cores (for example, Fe3O4 nanoparticle) can be easily
incorporated to MS particles during the synthesis, creating a multifunctional therapeutic
system (for example, a drug carrier with imaging) (Ozin case 2). The silanol groups on the (-
Si-OH) surface of MS bring infinite opportunities to functionalize the surface with any group
(-R) of interest by allowing the surface to react with R-SiCl3. This enables various surface
functional groups for actively targeting, controllably load and unload drug, with a lot of
different mechanism (which will be reviewed carefully later in this paper). Last but not least,
MS can be easily synthesized and purified by centrifugation, enabling mass production with
low cost.
Having a highly porous structure, MS has an astonishingly high surface energy, which
enables both the effective loading of the pores and the locking of the substrates in the
pores by stimuli-responsive gating caps.
5
Basically, the drugs are loaded to the pores by
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physisorption, by soaking the MS in a solution of the drugs. A stimuli-responsive gate is a
system or a molecule that closes the pores, keeping the drug inside, but sensitive to some
stimuli (i.e. pH, light, redox, enzymes, etc.). With the presence of the appropriate stimuli, the
gate will be opened, thus releasing the drug. Therefore, by controlling the stimuli agents, we
can control the release of the drug from the pores. Due to the ease of surface
functionalization discussed above, various types of gating caps stimuli have been successfully
applied, including pH, light, redox and enzymes. In the rest of the paper, I will review this
exciting feature of MS: controlled release of a drug in several mechanisms with different
stimuli: redox with disulfide bond, pH with acetal linker and light irradiation with
Azobenzene.
Unloading drug mechanisms
The first mechanism is based on the redox-dependent disulfide bond (S-S) cleavage
(Figure 2). Basically, the silane groups (light blue background in the figure) help attaching the
drug to the surface, the amine group (in green) acts as the pore cork and the disulfide
group (pink) is a bridge that can be easily broken by reduction. After loading the drug
molecules to the pores, the amine groups are reacted with a cork of carboxylic groups,
creating a gate to hold the drug inside the pores (Figure 2). Once the pores have been closed,
these MS particles can be washed, without losing the drug inside, and injected into blood for
drug delivery. Targeting might be involved in this process, but varied depending on the
specific treatment. For example, due to the high abundance of folate receptors on many
cancer cells compared to healthy cells, acid folic can be used as the targeting ligands. After
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the MS particles get to the site of interest, the disulfide bridge can be reduced to thiol groups
easily in our biological system, breaking the gate and unload the drug locally.

Figure 2. The schematic view of drug releasing using disulfide as the cap. Three are three steps.
Firstly, drug molecules are loaded to the pores by surface functionalization. Secondly, amidation creates the
anchor closing the pores mouth. And finally, disulfide cleavage removes the cap and releases the drug. Figure
taken from Ref. 1.
The second mechanism uses a light-stimuli system, where a DNA-modified
Azobenzene molecule is the cap, reported by Yuan et al
8
(Figure 3). Basically, they attached
two chunks of DNA to the azobenzene molecule at 3 and 5 (Figure 3), and attach the
complementary DNA chunks to the surface near the pore mouth of MS. When the
azobenzene is in trans-structure, two complementary DNAs (from the surface and the
azobenzene) can hybridize and close the pore (Figure 3). However, when the azobenzene is
in cis-structure, the azobenzene molecule is folded, creating enough constrain to dehybridize
the DNA linkers and open the pore. Azobenzene is known for undergoing a reversible
isomerization easily under irradiation: from trans to cis by UV light from 300-380nm and
from cis to trans by visible light at above 400nm. Taking advantage of this isomerization,
Yuan et al. was able to use UV light at 365nm to convert trans-azobenzene to cis-azobenzene
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and break the linkers and thus open the pores to unload drugs. To test the capping efficiency
of this approach, Yuan et al. did a series of alternating irradiation wavelengths (Figure 4).
This experiment showed that almost no release happened at visible light (trans-structure,
caps on)

Figure 3. Schematic of azobezene-modified DNA-controlled reversible release system. Visible
irradiation at 450 nm (azobenzene trans) leads to hybridization of the linker and the complementary DNA
arm. Irradiation with UV (365 nm) converts azobenzene to the cis form, leading to dehybridization and
pore opening. Figure taken from Ref. 8.
and substantial release happened at UV light (cis-structure, caps off). To further prove the
usability of azobenzene as the capping agent, Yuan et al. investigated the cytotoxicity of azo-
DNA/MS on human cells. The results showed that more than 95% of the cell lived after
incubated with azo-DNA/MS, proving the biocompatibility of this method. Despite its
promising properties, this approach has a major problem, which is the use of short
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wavelength UV/Visible light (300-400nm), if researchers want to use it directly in
human/animals body. These wavelengths are not in the biological window the wavelength
range in which light would not damage the biological tissues, which is from 650nm to
900nm. There are two main ongoing directions of research in the field to solve this problem:
finding a similar system that uses the same mechanism and creating new light-triggered drug
carriers. (Cite something) Researchers have been able to make some real progress in both
directions and the complete results should be reported soon.

Figure 4. Release profile from MSN as a function of time, showing the reversible
dehybridization/rehybridization switching by changing the light wavelength. Data have been normalized to
the largest amount of released dye at 600 min in the experiment. Taken from Ref. 8.
The last method reviewed in this paper is to use pH as the stimuli agent for opening
the cap by Liu et al.
9
Acidic drug carriers are sought after for the treatment of acidic targets,
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such as tumors and inflammable tissues. Liu et al. capped the pores of MS with gold
nanoparticles attached to the pores mouth by a pH-sensitive acetal linker. Firstly, carboxylic
groups were attached to the MS via surface functionalization, then were reacted with excess
3,9-bis(3-aminopropyl)-2,4,8,10-tetraoxaspiro[5,5]undecane (Figure 5), creating the acetal
linker. The amine group in the linker was then reacted with a carboxylic acid modified gold
nanoparticle (Au-COOH) to cap the gold nanoparticle to the mouth of the pores. To test
out of capping efficiency, [Ru(bipy)3]Cl2 was loaded (phisisorbed) to MS and then Au-
COOH was added to the solution to create the cap (via linker described above).
Nanoparticles were washed after that to remove excess [Ru(bipy)3]Cl2 on the surface of MS
then dispersed in water at different pH to examine their controlled release ability. The results
were impressive: at pH = 7.0, no free [Ru(bipy)3]Cl2 was found showing efficient capping; at
pH = 4.0, 100% release was reached after 13 hours and at pH = 2.0, 90% release was
reached after 30 minutes. To further prove that the [Ru(bipy)3]Cl2 was actually capped inside
the mesoporous structure, Liu et al. also carried out an experiment where no cap (Au-
COOH) was added to the solution. As expected, all the [Ru(bipy)3]Cl2 was washed off by the
washing phase and nothing was found in water at any pH value. Although Liu et al. did not
test out the biocompatibility of this MS/Au combination in their research, this method is
still very promising because both MS and Au
nanoparticles are well established as non-toxic
in the literature.

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Figure 5. Schematic Illustration of pH-Responsive Nanogated Ensemble Based on Gold-Capped
Mesoporous Silica through Acid-Labile Acetal Linker. Figure taken from Ref. 9.

In conclusion, I have introduced the simplest method of synthesizing MS using sol-
gel chemistry with size tunability and high production yield. Due to its porous structure, high
biocompatibility, high tunability in size and shape and unique surface functionalization,
mesoporous silica is an exceptional drug delivery carrier. I have picked three different
methods of unloading drug, which use redox, light and pH as the stimuli, to represent the
concept behind stimuli capping agents. After only twenty years after MS first synthesis in
1990, researchers have turned MS silica into the multifunctional system for drug delivery,
biosensing, templating, catalytic and many other applications. Currently, MSs drug delivery
is under extensive research on animals, like mice, and showing great promise. However,
whether it will work as desired in the human body remains unanswered at the moment and it
requires a complete research portfolio on animals before we can move into human testing.
That said, with the advance of nanoscience, the cure for cancer, HIV and a lot of other
diseases might be just around the corner.

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