Semi-continuous production of iron oxide nanoparticles via membrane emulsification

Maria Medina-Llamas, Davide Mattia

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Abstract

The large-scale production of nanomaterials with fine control over their shape, size and properties remains a major obstacle towards their further use. Here, the semi-continuous production of metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) via membrane emulsification (ME) is reported for the first time, using an oil-in-water emulsion and a commercial stirred ME setup fitted with a novel ring-shaped anodic alumina membrane (AAM). A systematic investigation of process parameters showed that the narrow pore size distribution of AAMs resulted in a narrow size distribution of both droplets and particles, with Ddroplet/Dpore as small as 2.8, compared to typical literature values of 10 or more. The average particle size was 4.2 ± 0.5 nm and 18 ± 4 nm for the as-synthetized and calcined NPs, respectively. Calculations of the emulsion production rate demonstrate the potential of the ME setup to produce up to 1 kg of NP per hour per metre squared of membrane.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)504-512
Number of pages9
JournalApplied Surface Science
Volume463
Early online date30 Aug 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2019

Funding

The authors express their gratitude to the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) for the doctoral scholarship granted to M.M.-L. D.M. expressed his gratitude to the UK Royal Academy of Engineering for funding via a Research Fellowship. XPS data collection was performed at the EPSRC National Facility for XPS (‘HarwellXPS’), operated by Cardiff University and UCL, under contract No. PR16195. All data created during this research are openly available from the University of Bath data archive at https://doi.org/10.15125/BATH-00544 . Appendix A

Keywords

  • Anodic alumina membrane
  • Hematite
  • Membrane emulsification
  • Nanoemulsions
  • Nanoparticles

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Surfaces, Coatings and Films

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