Continuous flow synthesis of nanoparticles using ceramic microfluidic devices

Abstract

A microfluidic system based on the low-temperature co-fired ceramics technology (LTCC)is proposed to reproducibly carry out a simple one-phase synthesis and functionalization ofmonodispersed gold nanoparticles. It takes advantage of the LTCC technology, offering afast prototyping without the need to use sophisticated facilities, reducing significantly thecost and production time of microfluidic systems. Some other interesting advantages ofthe ceramic materials compared to glass, silicon or polymers are their versatilityand chemical resistivity. The technology enables the construction of multilayeredsystems, which can integrate other mechanical, electronic and fluidic components ina single substrate. This approach allows rapid, easy, low cost and automatedsynthesis of the gold colloidal, thus it becomes a useful approach in the progressionfrom laboratory scale to pilot-line scale processes, which is currently demanded.