Scalable Nanomanufacturing of Uniform Inorganic Nanoparticles Using Jet-Mixing Reactors

Nanoparticles have unique optical, magnetic, electronic, and catalytic properties that could lead to advances in computing, energy storage, chemical manufacturing, and healthcare. However, for those advances to be realized, nanoparticle syntheses must be translated from small laboratory-scale batch processes to commercial scale manufacturing processes.

There have been several advances in continuous manufacturing of polymer nanoparticles; however, inorganic nanoparticles (i.e., metals, semiconductors, ceramics) are more difficult to manufacture because they often require high temperatures and inert environments. This award develops a high temperature and/or air-free scalable nanomanufacturing process for inorganic nanoparticles using catalyst and semiconductor quantum dots as model systems.

These materials have high commercial potential (market capitalization of more than $1 billion per year) and are applied across industry sectors from healthcare to electronics. These materials have import for national security and global leadership because they are used in new kinds of computing important for American competitiveness, such as spintronics and quantum computing.

This work also trains a diverse workforce for emerging careers in scalable nanomanufacturing with input from companies engaging in scale up processes.

This research addresses a critical need for scalable processes for manufacturing inorganic nanoparticles. Currently, many of these materials are manufactured in batch processes that limit nanoparticle uniformity, and thus control of their size-dependent properties. Building upon successful polymer nanoparticle synthesis in jet mixing reactors via a nanoprecipitation route, this research develops inorganic (metal, semiconductor) nanoparticle manufacturing in air-free and/or high temperature jet-mixing reactors and provides accompanying scaling laws for their scale-up.

As model systems the project studies CdS, MnS, and PbS quantum dots and Cu alloy catalysts, which are oxygen sensitive, require high temperatures for synthesis, or exhibit different morphologies depending on temperature. Concurrently, the project develops methods to integrate jet-mixing reactors in series to enable manufacture of core-shell nanoparticles composed of different materials.

Such hybrid materials offer potential for multifunctionality or tunable properties. Currently, hybrid nanoparticles are manufactured in batch systems that are difficult to scale. This work also investigates methods of thermal control using fluid flow (as opposed to external heating and cooling) to enable rapid control in high temperature manufacturing processes.

This is accomplished by interdisciplinary interactions within the team of experts in reactor design, nanoparticle synthesis, COMSOL modeling, and nucleation and growth theory. The project advances knowledge in the understanding and control of continuous scalable nanomanufacturing technologies.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.