Microreactor with integrates temperature control for the synthesis of CdSe nanocrystals

The recent needs in the nanosciences field have promoted the interest towards the development of miniaturized and highly integrated devices able to improve and automate the current processes associated to the efficient nanomaterials production. Herein, a green tape based microfluidic system to perform high temperature controlled synthetic reactions of nanocrystals is presented. The device, which integrates both, the microfluidics and a thermally controlled platform, was applied to the automated and continuoussynthesis of CdSe quantum dots. Since temperature can be accurately regulated as required, sizecontrolled and reproducible quantum dots could be obtained by regulating this parameter and the molar ratio of precursors. The obtained nanocrystals were characterized by UV-Vis and fluorescencespectrophotometries. The band width of the emission peaks obtained indicates a narrow size distribution of the nanocrystals, which confirms the uniform temperature profile applied for each synthetic process, being the optimum temperature at 270° C (Full Width at Half Maximum = 40 nm). This approach allows a temperature controlled, easy, low cost and automated way to produce quantum dots in organic media, enhancing its application from laboratory-scale to pilot-line scale processes.This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) through projects CTQ2009-12128 and the Consolider Ingenio 2010 project CSD2006 -12 and Catalonia 15 Government through SGR 2009 -0323