Large-scale synthesis of nanocrystals in a multichannel droplet reactor

Abstract

We report a multichannel microfluidic droplet reactor for the large-scale, high temperature synthesis of nanocrystals. The reactor was applied here to the production of CdTe, CdSe and alloyed CdSeTe nanocrystals, and found in all cases to provide high quality quantum dots with spectral properties that did not vary between channels or over time. One hour test runs yielded 3.7, 1.5 and 2.1 g of purified CdTe, CdSe and the alloy, respectively, using 0.4 M cadmium precursor solutions and carrier and reagent phase flow rates of 4 and 2 ml min⁻¹. A further nine hour test-run applied to CdTe, utilizing increased carrier and reagent flow rates of 5 and 3 ml min⁻¹, yielded 54.4 g of dry purified material, corresponding to a production rate of 145 g per day. The reactor architecture is inherently scalable and, with only minimal modifications, should allow for straightforward expansion to the kilogram-per-day production levels sought by industry.