Towards a microfluidics platform for the continuous manufacture of organic and inorganic nanoparticles

Abstract

In the last decade, microfluidics has opened new avenues for the synthesis of nanomaterials. However, the adoption of this production technique has been limited to a few high-value, low-production-volume organic nanoparticles. While there are several technical factors that can be attributed to this slow adoption, an important aspect to consider is the lack of a unified platform capable of producing a wide range of nanomaterials. In this work, we highlight a micro-mixing platform that can manufacture both organic and in-organic nanoparticles over a wide size range (nm-μm). We show that the platform can predictably and reproducibly create size and shape-controlled formulations with high homogeneity through input flow parameters. We further explore parallelization of this platform and discuss key technical constraints for high-volume production. We believe that the platform presented in this work can accelerate the adoption of nanomaterials relevant to a range of industries that encompass pharmaceutics, diagnostics, and cosmeceuticals.

Keywords: Diagnostics; Manufacturing; Medical imaging; Microfluidic; Nanoparticles; Pharmaceutical.