Large-Scale Synthesis of Monodisperse Nanocrystals via Microreaction

A microfluidic reactor was set up to synthesize quantum dots (QDs) in large scale. The increased reaction channels in an individual reactor lead to improved throughput while maintaining sufficient residence time for the nucleation and growth of QDs. Uniform reaction conditions in the four capillaries realized by our set-up result in superior stability of the whole system. Organometallic synthesis of CdSe was chosen as a model system to evaluate the reactor, the absorption spectra of samples collected from different streams at various time intervals are indistinguishable from each other. By systematically varying the reaction parameters, fairly monodisperse CdSe NCs was produced with three times throughput higher than the conventional single-channel counterpart, and the FWHM of the PL. peaks can be controlled in the range from 37nm to 44nm. The large-scale synthesis route is characterized as excellent reproducibility, low-cost, fast reaction, and mass-production, by which 12ml CdSe NCs solution can be produced within 1h with the reaction time of 21s.