Study on the Technology of Monodisperse Droplets by a High-Throughput and Instant-Mixing Droplet Microfluidic System.

In this study, we report a novel high-throughput and instant-mixing droplet microfluidic system that can prepare uniformly mixed monodisperse droplets at a flow rate of mL/min designed for rapid mixing between multiple solutions and the preparation of micro-/nanoparticles. The system is composed of a magneton micromixer and a T-junction microfluidic device. The magneton micromixer rapidly mixes multiple solutions uniformly through the rotation of the magneton, and the mixed solution is sheared into monodisperse droplets by the silicone oil in the T-junction microfluidic device. The optimal conditions of the preparation of monodisperse droplets for the system have been found and factors affecting droplet size are analyzed for correlation; for example, the structure of the T-junction microfluidic device, the rotation speed of the magneton, etc. At the same time, through the uniformity of the color of the mixed solution, the mixing performance of the system is quantitatively evaluated. Compared with mainstream micromixers on the market, the system has the best mixing performance. Finally, we used the system to simulate the internal gelation broth preparation of zirconium broth and uranium broth. The results show that the system is expected to realize the preparation of ceramic microspheres at room temperature without cooling by the internal gelation process.

Synthesis and Characterization of Zirconium Nitride Nanopowders by Internal Gelation and Carbothermic Nitridation.

Zirconium compounds has been widely attention over the last decades due to its excellent physical and chemical properties. Zirconium nitride nanopowders were synthesized via a simple direct carbothermic nitridation process of internal gel derived zirconia in the presence of nano-sized carbon black. The effects of reaction temperature, dwell time and molar ratio of carbon black to Zr (C/Zr) on the phase composition, grain size and crystal parameters of products were studied. Based upon the analysis of crystallite phase evolution and microstructure characterization, it was found that zirconium oxynitride is intermediate product and then O atoms in oxynitride were extracted by oxygen getter, carbon black. Anion sites were directly replaced by N atoms to form rock-salt type nitride in carbothermic nitridation process.

Fabrication of ceramic microspheres by diffusion-induced sol-gel reaction in double emulsions.

We demonstrate an approach to prepare zirconium dioxide (ZrO2) microspheres by carrying out a diffusion-induced sol-gel reaction inside double emulsion droplets. A glass capillary microfluidic device is introduced to generate monodisperse water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) double emulsions with a zirconium precursor as the inner phase. By adding ammonia to the continuous aqueous phase, the zirconium precursor solution is triggered to gel inside the emulsions. The double emulsion structure enhances the uniformity in the rate of the sol-gel reaction, resulting in sol-gel microspheres with improved size uniformity and sphericity. ZrO2 ceramic microspheres are formed following subsequent drying and sintering steps. Our approach, which combines double-emulsion-templating and sol-gel synthesis, has great potential for fabricating versatile ceramic microspheres for applications under high temperature and pressure.