I-Corps: Novel Flame Base Precursors for Controlled Catalyst Structure

对于许多先进和多样化的应用，包括化学传感、催化和磁记录，目前的研究越来越多地集中在利用纳米颗粒的高表面体积比作为复杂纳米材料组装的框架。结构包括核/壳纳米粒子和多组分分层组件可以表现出增强的性能和新的功能，这些性能和新功能来自于化学上不同的纳米结构组件。开发可扩展的制造工艺，提供必要的纳米颗粒结构控制，以增强活性，这对将纳米颗粒大规模工业催化应用提出了重大的技术经济挑战。所提出的技术具有控制前驱体注入和严格控制纳米颗粒核-壳形成的反应区域，为扩大核-壳纳米催化剂的制造和分层组装提供了一种独特的连续工艺方法，其成本与大规模工业应用相关。提出的反应喷涂沉积技术（RSDT）是一种薄膜沉积工艺，克服了传统气相沉积技术的许多缺点，同时也取代了传统的多步骤湿法加工制造，以更低的成本获得相同或更好的涂层质量。RSDT不仅提供高质量的活性薄膜/涂层（例如催化剂/电极），还减少了人力、催化剂装载量、能耗和组装薄膜所需的加工步骤。更具体地说，RSDT将材料合成和沉积结合到一个具有多个控制特征的步骤中，取代了传统电极制造方案中的至少5个单元操作。

For many advanced and diverse applications, ranging from chemical sensing, catalysis, and magnetic recording, current research is increasingly focused on exploiting the high surface-to-volume ratios of nanoparticles as a framework for the assembly of complex nanomaterials. Structures including core/shell nanoparticles and multicomponent hierarchical assemblies can exhibit enhanced properties and new functionality arising from the close proximity of chemically-distinct, nanostructured components.Developing scalable fabrication processes that provide the necessary control of nanoparticle structure for enhanced activity presents significant techno-economic challenges for bringing nanoparticles to large- scale industrial catalytic applications. The proposed technology with controlled precursor injection and tightly controlled reaction zones for nanoparticle core-shell formation provides a unique continuous process approach for scaling up core-shell nanocatalyst fabrication and hierarchical assemblies at costs that are relevant for large-scale industrial applications.The proposed Reactive Spray Deposition Technology (RSDT) technology is a thin-film deposition process that overcomes many of the shortcomings of traditional vapor deposition techniques while also replacing conventional multiple step wet processing manufacturing yielding equal or better quality coatings at a lower cost. The RSDT not only provides high quality active films/coatings (e.g.catalysts/electrodes), it also reduces the manpower, catalyst loading amount, energy consumption and number of processing steps required to assemble the films. More specifically, RSDT combines materials synthesis and deposition into a single step with several control features, replacing at least 5 unit operations in a conventional electrode manufacturing scheme.