Thermogravimetry as a Reliable tool to Estimate the Density of Silanols on a Silica Gel Surface

A method was developed to estimate the density of the silanol groups attached to silica gel surfaces from thermogravimetric data. Depending on the mechanism of condensation of silanol groups during heating, after removing physically adsorbed water, the results obtained ranged from 4.3 to 6.7 OH nm-2for a series of silicas. The data are in good agreement with those obtained by other techniques. Thermogravimetry proved to be a reliable tool for this kind of study, with the great advantage of being a simple, quick and inexpensive method requiring only a few mg of the silica sample.