Reactive Fluids

To improve the understanding of nanomaterials’ growth processes, different in situ or inline techniques can be employed. One commonly employed sampling technique in aerosol science is a direct thermophoretic sampling on TEM grids. Thermophoretic sampling allows to collect particles from an aerosol unbiased for a large operating regime. Our pneumatically driven sampling system allows to directly deposit particles from the hot reaction zone on TEM grids which can then be analyzed by electron microscopy. Changing the axial and radial point at which the particles are collected then allows to investigate spatially resolved the particle growth and structure formation.

We are using two different sampling devices, one for very short exposure time (1-2 ms) and one that can be adjusted from 5 to 30 ms exposure time.

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​​​​Figure 1: Top: Sampling holder. Bottom: Setup for thermophoretic sampling.

Literature:

F. Kunze, S. Kuns, M. Spree, T. Hülser, C. Schulz, H. Wiggers, S.M. Schnurre, Synthesis of silicon nanoparticles in a pilot-plant-scale microwave plasma reactor: Impact of flow rates and precursor concentration on the nanoparticle size and aggregation, Powder Technol. 342 (2019) 880–886 DOI: 10.1016/j.powtec.2018.10.042

C.F. López-Cámara, P. Fortugno, M. Heidelmann, H. Wiggers, C. Schulz, Graphene self-folding: Evolution of free-standing few-layer graphene in plasma synthesis, Carbon, 218 (2024) 118732, DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2023.118732