Continuous, Economical Manufacture of Nanocrystals for Future Industries and Medicine

纳米晶体或纳米颗粒在技术相关性方面继续发展，其应用领域广泛，如能源（太阳能收集）、环境（更安全的市政水处理）、医学（肿瘤诊断和治疗）和微电子学（移动的设备和存储器）。这些小颗粒的尺寸从几纳米到近一微米不等，有多种用途，在大多数情况下，正是它们的小尺寸产生了独特的材料特性和功能，而这些特性和功能是较大尺寸的相同材料无法实现的。这些特性保证了广泛的市场潜力和相应的社会影响，如果可扩展的制造工艺能够以低成本提供大量高质量的材料，同时限制其生产对环境的影响。该奖项支持基础研究，为高质量纳米晶体的连续生产提供多功能制造平台。这样的平台将允许经济上有吸引力的分布式生产，而不是集中式生产，可用于按需应用，类似于3D打印的承诺。以快速、经济的方式生产定制纳米晶体的能力，正如膜反应器概念所可能的那样，可以是不断发展的21世纪美国制造基础设施的一个重大进步。由于平衡约束和基于速率的反应和传质过程之间的相互作用，常规生产定义明确的纳米颗粒仍然是一个重大挑战。通常，在可实现的产品数量和质量之间存在权衡，较高的生产速率导致对纳米晶体的尺寸、形态、均匀性和相关材料性质的控制减少。为了解决这一持续的挑战，该团队将使用实验，建模，深入的材料表征和创造性的系统设计，以面对重要的科学和工程问题，关于膜的几何自由度与流体动力学方面的耦合流动系统，以及特定的化学反应，以合成具有理想材料特性的纳米晶体。还可以发现与膜的多孔表面上的“表面反应域”的纳米尺寸如何可以进一步影响如何达到和超过反应（或其他相变）的临界化学计量有关的新现象。这种制造创新的可行性和可扩展性将通过制造磁铁矿、银、金和卤素稳定的硫属化物纳米晶体来证明，所有这些纳米晶体都被认为是技术上重要的纳米材料，开始影响一些关键行业。

Nanocrystals or nanoparticles continue to evolve in technological relevance, with application in fields as diverse as energy (solar energy harvesting), environment (safer municipal water treatment), medicine (tumor diagnostics and treatments) and microelectronics (mobile devices and memory). These small particles, ranging in size from a few nanometers to almost a micron, serve many purposes, and in most cases it is their small size that yields unique material properties and functionality that are unattainable with the same material with a larger size. These properties promise extensive market potential and corresponding societal impact should scalable manufacturing processes be put into place that can provide large quantities of material at low cost with high quality, all the while limiting the environmental impact of their production. This award supports fundamental studies to provide a versatile manufacturing platform for the continuous production of high quality nanocrystals. Such a platform will permit economically-attractive and distributed, rather than centralized, production that can be utilized for on-demand applications, similar to the promise of 3D printing. The ability to produce customized nanocrystals in a rapid, cost effective fashion, as is possible with a membrane reactor concept, can be a significant advance in the evolving 21st century U.S. manufacturing infrastructure.The routine production of well-defined nanoparticles remains a significant challenge, because of the interplay between equilibrium constraints and rate-based reaction and mass transfer processes. Typically, a trade-off exists between the achievable product quantity and quality, with higher production rates resulting in diminished control of nanocrystals' size, morphology, uniformity and the associated material properties. To address this ongoing challenge, the team will use experimentation, modeling, in-depth materials characterization, and creative system design, to confront the significant scientific and engineering questions with respect to the coupling of the membrane's geometric degrees-of-freedom to the hydrodynamic aspects of a flow system, and the specific chemical reactions, in order to synthesize nanocrystals with desirable material properties. New phenomena may also be uncovered related to how the nanometer size of the "surface reaction domains" on the membrane's porous surface can further affect how the critical stoichiometry for a reaction (or other phase transition) is reached and exceeded. The feasibility and scalability of this manufacturing innovation will be demonstrated through the manufacture of magnetite, silver, gold, and halogen-stabilized chalcogenide nanocrystals, all regarded as technologically significant nanomaterials that are beginning to impact a number of key industries.