Microfluidic Synthesis of Nanohybrids

Abstract

Nanohybrids composed of two or more components exhibit many distinct physicochemical properties and hold great promise for applications in optics, electronics, magnetics, new energy, environment protection, and biomedical engineering. Microfluidic systems exhibit many advantages due to their unique characteristics of narrow channels, variable length, controllable number of channels and multiple integrations. Particularly their spatial-temporarily splitting of the formation stages during nanomaterials formation along the microfluidic channels favors the online control of the reaction kinetic parameters and in situ tuning of the product properties. This Review is focused on the features of the current types of microfluidic devices in the synthesis of different types of nanohybrids based on the classification of the four main kinds of materials: metal, nonmetal inorganic, polymer and composites. Their morphologies, compositions and properties can be adjusted conveniently in these synthesis systems. Synthesis advantages of varieties of microfluidic devices for specific nanohybrids of defined surfaces and interfaces are presented according to their process and microstructure features of devices as compared with conventional methods. A summary is presented, and challenges are put forward for the future development of the microfluidic synthesis of nanohybrids for advanced applications.

Keywords: controlled synthesis; microfluidics; nanohybrids.