Abstract
It is widely recognised that flow-reactors offer greater control over the stoichiometry of chemical reactions when compared to batch methods, since they provide finer and more predictable regulation over the transport of fluids and chemical species. These characteristics are of critical importance in the context of nanoparticle production, since the physical and chemical properties of the fluidic environment within a reactor strongly influence the size and/or shape of the end-product. In the past decade, replica moulding techniques (e.g., based on soft-lithography) have been developed to manufacture flow-reactors in a relatively cost-effective and efficient fashion. However, devices are often operated using multiple syringe pumps, and several of these techniques require laborious and multi-step procedures. In this study, we developed rapidly prototyped reactors embedded within a cylindrical structure that are designed for actuation using a laboratory centrifuge (herein referred to as reactor-in-a-centrifuge, or RIAC). Using RIACs of different architecture, we demonstrated production of nanoscale liposomes of therapeutically relevant size (in the diameter range 80 – 300 nm) under varying operating conditions. We also demonstrated production of silver nanospheres (with UV–vis absorption maxima of 404 nm) at selected operating conditions. The novel concept proposed in this study has the potential to significantly simplify the synthesis of nanomaterials over more commonly used microfluidic techniques, as it relies on a cost-effective and single-step reactor manufacturing process (using a desktop 3D printer) and employs widely available laboratory centrifuges to drive reagents through the reactor. In this paper we describe RIAC’s design, manufacturing, and actuation protocols, and demonstrate its applicability to the flow synthesis of nanoparticles without relying on highly specialised instrumentation or costly procedures.
Highlights
Chemical reactors that carry materials in a flowing stream exhibit unique characteristics over their batch counterparts, since they provide enhanced stoichiometric control and increased production yield, while reducing waste of expensive or hazardous chemicals [1]
It should be noted that the centrifugecompatible RIAC architecture has been conceived for manufacturing via cost-effective 3D printing, and it would be technically complex, time consuming, and/or expensive to manufacture with alternative methods that are often employed to fabricate microfluidic-based flow reactors
We reported on the manufacturing and testing of two different RIAC architectures, containing either a straight or spiral shaped mixing channel; these are channel configurations often employed in flow synthesis of nanoparticulate-based formulations
Summary
Chemical reactors that carry materials in a flowing stream (often referred to as ‘flow reactors’) exhibit unique characteristics over their batch counterparts, since they provide enhanced stoichiometric control and increased production yield, while reducing waste of expensive or hazardous chemicals [1]. The scalability of manufacturing processes for these reactors has significantly improved with the advent of softlithography [7], in which multiple replica of a device can be fabri cated from a single master mould. Threedimensional (3D) printing has emerged as a cost-effective and robust technology to either fabricate flow reactors in a single step [8,9], or to generate master moulds for soft-lithography [10]. To over come this limitation, we recently developed a cost-effective and facile manufacturing process (~£5 per device, fabrication time < 24 h), involving 3D printed master moulds made using desktop 3D printers to generate PDMS channel replica, which were manually sealed to a pressure-sensitive adhesive tape [13]
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