Paper Title
A Novel Method of Preparing Dispersed Nano Silica Particles for Enhanced Pozzolanic Effect

Abstract
Studies on the effect of Nano-engineered materials on the pozzolanic activity has had an increasing share interest in research, of which, spherical shape silica nanoparticles (n‐SiO2).This paper is concerned with introducing a novel method of producing (n‐SiO2), with controllable size and charge, through tetraethoxysilane(TEOS) using sol‐gel method. Previous studies were conducted using similar methods that resulted in a decrease of particle size to (80-150 nm).(Singh et al., n.d.)Through surfactants, Sorbitainmonostearate (span 60) and cetylpyridinium chloride, morphology and size of the particles were controlled, yielding a decrease in silica nanoparticles size varying from (7-12 nm) - measured using transmission electron microscope (TEM).In addition to decrease in particle size, cetylpyridinium chloride surfactant has affected the particle charge reaching a zeta potential of (45-48 mV +ve) which increased the dispersion of Nano silica. This effect over the pozzolanic activity was further validated through the electrical conductivity test, where a 93% conductivity loss was a strong indicator to a higher pozzolanic activity. This was achieved by a series of trial and error experimental iterations. Keywords - Nano Silica, Dispersion of Nano Particles, Pozzolanic Activity, +VE Charged Surface