Synthesis of core-shell nanoparticles in microreactors

Nanoparticles (NPs) have attracted the scientific interest during the last decades, currently being used and explored for a large number of application. Lying at the edge between bulk solids and molecular structures, nanoparticles exhibit exceptional properties due to their very small size (1-100 nm) such as extremely high surface energy, high area to volume ratio and quantum confinement effects. Such unique chemical and physical properties makes them interesting in a wide range of fields, including catalysis, biomedical imaging and light emitting technologies.
Despite their potential, their deployment in large scale application require the overcome of a number of hurdles. Their high surface energy means that they are particularly reactive and sensitive to agglomeration. Furthermore, most nanoparticle syntheses are currently carried out using batch procedures on small scales and the scale up of the reactions is often challenging, limiting potential industrial applications.
In order to tackle those issues, this project aims at developing new manufacturing technologies for the synthesis of core/shell nanoparticle, where the outer shell acts as a barrier protecting the inner core composed of the desired material. For this, flow synthesis in microreactor will be explored to maximise their high heat and mass transfer coefficients as well as laminar flow regime, thereby opening up the way to a large scale industrial production.