MicroJet Reactor Technology: An Automated, Continuous Approach for Nanoparticle Syntheses

A new design of a confined impinging jet microreactor has been applied for continuous‐flow syntheses of metal chalcogenide nanomaterials. The microjet reactor is an automated, flexible, scalable, and thus industrially viable technology allowing a strict control over process parameters for the design of materials with tunable properties. Due to the short mixing times in the µs to ms range, crystallite nucleation and crystal growth are well separated and enable concentration‐limited particle growth and thus nanoparticle synthesis. The first approaches on the microjet reactor setup presented here were focused on the synthesis of nanocrystalline Ta‐doped tin dioxides and cadmium sulfide nanoparticles. The nanomaterials were characterized by a number of methods like powder X‐ray diffraction and conductivity measurements. Microfluidic synthesis is a flexible, scalable, and continuous approach enabling mixing, reaction, and heat transfer otherwise not possible with conventional technologies. In this context, an innovative design of a confined impinging jet microreactor in form of a cross‐mixing device has been developed and applied for continuous‐flow syntheses of metal chalcogenide nanomaterials.