Water Adsorption on Pyrogenic Silica Followed by 1H MAS NMR.

On the surface of two commercial pyrogenic silicas (Degussa and Cabot), five resonances were identified on the basis of the chemical shift, homonuclear coupling (T2), and spin-lattice relaxation behavior (T1). In accordance with previous studies we observed three different types of silanol groups: (i) weakly coupled (long T2), water inaccessible, isolated "internal" silanols at 1.8 ppm; (ii) weakly coupled, external "free" silanols revealed upon dehydration at 2.