Video:
Nanoparticles form in a 3D-printed microfluidic channel. Each droplet shown
here
is about 250
micrometers in diameter, and contains billions of platinum nanoparticles.
https://youtu.be/K5rFL4MIfac (Courtesy of Richard Brutchey and Noah Malmstadt)
(February 24, 2016) Researchers
create a system that can scale-up production of the smallest – but among the
most useful – materials of this century
Nanoparticles – tiny particles 100,000 times smaller than
the width of a strand of hair – can be found in everything from drug delivery
formulations to pollution controls on cars to HD TV sets. With special
properties derived from their tiny size and subsequently increased surface
area, they’re critical to industry and scientific research.
They’re also expensive and tricky to make.
Now, researchers at USC have created a new way to
manufacture nanoparticles that will transform the process from a painstaking,
batch-by-batch drudgery into a large-scale, automated assembly line.
The method, developed by a team led by Noah Malmstadt of the
USC Viterbi School of Engineering and Richard Brutchey of the USC Dornsife
College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, was published in Nature Communications
on Feb. 23.
Schematic of the
parallel network assembled by connecting a distribution
manifold to four
droplet generators. The continuous phase was linked using
low resistance
jumper tubing (ID=762 μm) and the dispersed phase was
linked using
various lengths of tubing (ID=127 μm) to create a gradient
of resistances
across the four branches. (Nature.com)
Consider, for example, gold nanoparticles. They have been
shown to be able to easily penetrate cell membranes without causing any damage
– an unusual feat, given that most penetrations of cell membranes by foreign
objects can damage or kill the cell. Their ability to slip through the cell’s
membrane makes gold nanoparticles ideal delivery devices for medications to
healthy cells, or fatal doses of radiation to cancer cells.
However, a single milligram of gold nanoparticles currently
costs about $80 (depending on the size of the nanoparticles). That places the
price of gold nanoparticles at $80,000 per gram – while a gram of pure, raw
gold goes for about $50.