Yegân Erdem
Department of Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley
BSAC Graduate Student Researcher
September 25, 2012 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room
Host: Al Pisano
Microfluidic reactors – or microreactors – show promise for commercial-scale synthesis of nanoparticles with well controlled size, size distribution and shape. Compared to batch-wise synthesis techniques, microfluidic technology can provide better control of the reaction conditions, which is the key to controlling the product characteristics. Handling small volumes of liquid gives the ability to control the amount of reagents precisely and to mix them uniformly. In the case of reactions that require heating, reagents can be heated and cooled rapidly and uniformly, avoiding the large thermal gradients that are problematic in batch techniques. In addition to these advantages, mixing ratios and compositions can be changed almost instantly. In this talk, we will discuss two different microfluidic reactors. The first microreactor is made out of a polymer material and works by mixing two reagents by using a droplet-based flow to synthesize magnetic iron-oxide nanoparticles. The second microreactor is designed to achieve monodispersity by having thermally isolated heated and cooled zones for separating nucleation and growth processes and incorporating a two phase flow system to assure uniform reaction conditions. This reactor is made out of silicon and TiO2 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized inside.
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