Morphology Control of CdSe Nanoparticles via Two-Step Segmented Microreactors

Morphology control of CdSe nanoparticles was essential for their potential applications. Different shapes of CdSe nanoparticles could be synthesized in flask reactors. However, there were few researches using microreactors to control the morphologies of CdSe nanoparticles. In this article, a microfluidic approach was developed to synthesize anisotropic CdSe nanoparticles. The nucleation stage (or seed preparation stage) and crystal growth stage were separated, and PFPE was used to form segmented microreactors for the growth stage. The influence of different conditions, such as nucleation temperatures, crystal seeds concentration, the overall ratio of Cd to Se, and monomer concentration for growth stage, on the shape control of CdSe nanoparticles was studied. Branched shape CdSe nanoparticles with high monodispersity were obtained.