Yasmine N. Baghdadi

You have a fundamental contradiction in your sentence 'I am trying to synthesize nanoparticles by mixing the precursors by ball milling'.

Google: "comminution limit"

To expand on Alan's point, you may indeed get finer particles by keeping the temperature lower. I suggest going farther than you propose. Put the mill container in an ice bath for 5 or 10 minutes every 5 minutes. Instead of water ice, consider dry ice + alcohol or liquid nitrogen baths.

Hello Mr. Alan F Rawle,

To further clarify my sentence, I am adding my precursors to a ceramic bowl with balls and rotating at 500 rpm for an hour. My aim is to force the materials to collide and react with one another to form 2D materials. I was just wondering what effects the running process might have on the collision between the particles.

Thank you for the suggestion and clarification w.s.l. Boyer. I will look further into that.

Yasmine N. Baghdadi You will find it virtually impossible to make nanomaterials (< 100 nm) by ball milling. Don't even bother to try.

Try these for entertainment (registration required):

Dispersion and nanotechnology

https://www.malvernpanalytical.com/en/learn/events-and-training/webinars/W190528DispNanoMat

Controlling powder bulk density by optimizing particle size and shape distribution

https://www.malvernpanalytical.com/en/learn/events-and-training/webinars/W161006PowderParticleSizeShape

In the last webinar look at slides 28 onward, especially 33 and 34.

I attach a note of the application variety. I'll also add another webinar as the uniform resource locator in the note of application is no longer viable:

In pursuit of perfect packing

https://www.malvernpanalytical.com/en/learn/events-and-training/webinars/W151021PerfectPacking.html

Good luck in your studies.

Alan if by nanomaterials you mean small particle sizes, then, yes, you are quite correct. But if your concern is coherent scattering domain size, crystallite size, not particle size, then you can. Repeated particle fracture and cold welding continues to reduce domain sizes even as particle sizes reach a steady state. You can even make the coherent scattering domain size go to zero by transforming from crystalline to amorphous material. That is one method for solid state amorphisation reaction (SSAR). Bill Johnson of Caltech pioneered this field (IDK if first, but he's the one I know about). Bill Johnson was my PhD advisor's advisor.

w.s.l. Boyer

Yes, I understand your point about crystallite, as opposed to particle, size.

I am simply commenting on the basic impossibility of the 'request' in the first sentence of the question: 'I am trying to synthesize nanoparticles by mixing the precursors by ball milling'...

Amorphous materials have considerable advantages in some situations (e.g. dissolution) if they do not revert to a (more stable) crystalline, or polymorph, phase.

Alan F Rawle We are very much in agreement. I just wanted to add that tangental information :)

Thank you Alan F Rawle for the valuable information and w.s.l. Boyer for the clarifications.