Mild Microfluidic Approaches to Oxide Nanoparticles Synthesis

Abstract

Oxide nanoparticles (oxide NPs) are advanced materials with a wide variety of applications in different fields. The use of continuous flow methods is particularly appealing for their synthesis due to the high control achieved over the reaction conditions and the easy process scalability. The present review focuses on the preparation of oxide NPs using microfluidic setups at low temperature (≤80 °C), since the employment of mild reaction conditions is crucial for developing sustainable and cost-effective processes. A particular emphasis will be put on the improvement over the final product features (e. g., size, shape, and size distribution) given by flow methods with respect to conventional batch procedures. The main issues that arise by treating NPs suspensions in microfluidic systems are product deposition or channel clogging; mitigation strategies to overcome these drawbacks will also be presented and discussed.

Keywords: continuous flow; low temperature synthesis; microfluidic; nanoparticles; oxide.