Knowledge Meets Curiosity

USING MICROFLUIDIC DEVICES

Nanoparticles are a huge area of research in the chemical industry because of their many applications.  Different sized nanoparticles behave differently in the physical world.  There is no standard for making nanoparticles and they usually come in all different shapes and sizes.  Using a microfluidic device will allow extreme precision in creating uniform nanoparticle size. Our plan is to use Silver Nitrate and Ascorbic Acid to start the formation of silver nanoparticles, Sodium Hydroxide to increase the reduction potential of Ascorbic Acid which increases the growth rate of the nanoparticles.  Finally, we will add Citric Acid as a binding ligand to restrict nanoparticle growth to a specific size and shape.  By using a microfluidic device to control the delivery of all these reagents we can control the size of the particles. Using a fluorometer we can analyze and determine the success of our experiment.