Synthesis of aerosol gels comprising macro-aggregates in a buoyancy-opposed flame reactor by a diffusion-limiting cluster aggregating process

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11548793-B2
Application number	US-201716341825-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 19, 2017
Priority date	Oct 19, 2016
Publication date	Jan 10, 2023
Grant date	Jan 10, 2023

Abstract

A process for gas-phase synthesis of titanium dioxide aerosol gels with controlled monomer size and crystalline phase using a diffusion flame aerosol reactor operated in a buoyancy-opposed configuration is disclosed. The process includes introducing a precursor stream into a diffusion flame aerosol reactor, introducing a fuel stream into the reactor, combusting the precursor stream and the fuel stream in a flame to form at least one nanoparticle, and operating the reactor in a down-fired buoyancy-opposed configuration to produce the aerosol gel.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A process for synthesizing an aerosol gel comprising aggregates, the process comprising:
diffusion-limiting cluster aggregating (DLCA) of at least one nanoparticle to produce an aggregate of nanoparticles;
percolating the aggregate of nanoparticles to create a percolate of the aggregated nanoparticles; and,
DLCA of the percolate of aggregated nanoparticles to create an aerosol gel comprising macro-aggregates comprising particles having a diameter of from about 30 μm to about 5 mm.

2. The process of claim 1 , wherein the synthesizing of the aerosol gel comprising aggregates occurs in a diffusion flame aerosol reactor.

3. The process of claim 2 , wherein the reactor operates in a down-fired buoyancy-opposed configuration.

4. The process of claim 1 , wherein the aggregate of nanoparticles comprises nanoparticles having a diameter of from about 30 nm to about 100 nm.

5. The process of claim 1 , wherein the percolate of aggregated nanoparticles comprises nanoparticles having a diameter of from about 100 nm to about 30 μm.

Assignees

• Washington University St Louis

Inventors

• Chakrabarty Rajan K
• Liu Pai

Classifications

• C01P2002/85

  by XPS, EDX or EDAX data · CPC title

• B01J20/20

  comprising free carbon; comprising carbon obtained by carbonising processes · CPC title

• B82Y30/00

  Nanotechnology for materials or surface science, e.g. nanocomposites · CPC title

• C01P2004/61

  Micrometer sized, i.e. from 1-100 micrometer · CPC title

• B01J13/0091

  Preparation of aerogels, e.g. xerogels · CPC title