Size Control of Nanoparticles Using a Microfluidic Device

We have developed a microfluidic device system for the continuous producing of nanoparticles, and we have clarified the relationship between the mixing performance of reactors and the particle size. First, we evaluated the mixing performance of reactors by carrying out the Villermaux–Dushman reaction and determined the experimental conditions for producing AgCl nanoparticles. Next, we produced AgCl nanoparticles and evaluated the mixing performance and the particle size. We found that as the mixing performance improves the size of produced particles decreases and the particle size distribution becomes sharper. We produced AgCl nanoparticles with a size of 86nm using the microfluidic device that had the best mixing performance among the three reactors we tested in this study; the coefficient of variation (Cv) of the size distribution of the produced nanoparticles was 26.1%. Keywords— Microfluidic, Mixing, Nanoparticle, Silver Chloride.