Microfluidic System for Synthesis of Trigonal Selenium Nanowires

A microfluidic system was developed for the synthesis of trigonal selenium（t-Se） nanowires, which was composed of a glass microchip coupled with a poly（methyl methacrylate）（PMMA） microchip. In the glass microchip, amorphous selenium（a-Se） colloid was prepared by reducing selenious acid with an excess amount of hydrazine at a temperature of 100 ℃. In the coupled PMMA microchip, a-Se was transformed into more stable t-Se seeds via sonication at room temperature. The residence time of the reactants in both microchips was optimized by varying the dimension and length of the microchannel each. The t-Se nanowires were formed by anisotropic growth of selenium crystallite during sonication and aging under the assistance of β-cyclodextrin（β-CD）. Various stages of the nanowires＇ growth were investigated. The as-synthesized products were characterized by powder X-Ray diffraction（XRD）, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy（SEM）, transmission electron microscopy（TEM） and selected-area electron diffraction（SAED）.