Current laboratory syntheses of nanoparticles, especially those based on conventional flask-type reactors, are able to deliver only small amounts of particles, usually below one gram, and are plagued by low reproducibility and high synthesis costs. Various factors are involved here, like limitations of the size of the reactor, high costs of the chemicals involved, their toxicity, uncontrollable side effects of chemical impurities and others. A key activity will be the design of new synthesis schemes, for example based on continuous batch synthesis approaches, which will be able to deliver particles in amounts that are suitable for applications in catalysis, photovoltaics and energy storage.
Scale up of nanopowder production from lab scale to industrial scale is often risky and time consuming. Classical methods based on large stirred batch reactors are widely used and particle size/morphology is often controlled adding organic or polymeric additives. Examples are the large scale synthesis of nanoparticles of alkalyne-earth carbonates, iron oxides, spinels, silver. Tubular reactors are a possible solution for continuous production but incrustation of the inner tube wall is a common problem in many cases. Production of high quality powders in quantities of the order of a few kg per day can be achieved using the Segmented Flow Tubular Reactor (see http://ltp.epfl.ch/page-35593-en.html) . Other methods useful for mass production of nanoparticles are spray pyrolysis (it works with many oxides) and flame synthesis (widely used for the production of TiO2 and SiO2 nanoparticles from the corresponding tetrachlorides - see the web site of Evonik Degussa).
please have a look on the attached paper of Prof. Hyeon's group for the Ultra-large-scale syntheses of monodisperse nanocrystals Nature Materials.
Article Ultra-Large-Scale Syntheses of Monodisperse Nanocrystals
Scaled-up Microfluidic-based technologies can be used for high throughput synthesis of high quality Semiconductor Nanocrystals such as CdSe, CdS and CdSe/ZnS
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Materials Science
- Materials
- Nanomaterials