Synthesizing Nanoparticles Using Reactions Occurring in Aerosol Phases

Our ultimate objective is to form nanoparticles by merging oppositely charged nanodroplets containing different constituents of the nanoparticle and construct a desktop apparatus to do this. These nanodroplets will be in oppositely charged aerosols originating from oppositely charged solutions containing the different component of the nanoparticle. In this paper, as the first stage in establishing the feasibility of this concept, we demonstrate that droplets formed from uncharged solutions will merge and the product of such reactions is the same as when their bulk solutions are mixed. We demonstrate that this is the case for three classes of reactions: the chemiluminescent reaction between Luminol and Potassium Ferricyanide, the pH sensitive fluorescence of Umbelliferone and the precipitation of Silver Chromate by reaction of Silver Nitrate with Potassium Chromate. We present arguments that our future goal using oppositely charged droplets is more efficient synthetically and will produce a narrow distribution of nanoparticle sizes.