10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Aerosol Gelation in a Buoyancy-Opposed Flame Reactor: Application to Material Synthesis
PAI LIU, Yang Wang, Jiaxi Fang, Pratim Biswas, Rajan K. Chakrabarty, Washington University in St Louis
Abstract Number: 878 Working Group: Materials Synthesis
Abstract Aerosol gels are a novel class of materials with potential to serve various energy and environmental applications. Synthesis of aerosol gel materials in gas-phase could be a cost-effective alternative to the conventional wet sol-gel process. Past studies have shown nanoparticle gelation occurring in a down-fired, buoyancy-opposed flame aerosol reactor (BO-FAR) as a viable technique for scalable production of gel materials. However, this gas-phase technique has yet to be proved capable of synthesizing gels with tunable material properties. In this work, we present the results of our experiments specifically aimed at controlling the primary particle properties of gels using a BO-FAR. We were able to optimize the operating temperature conditions of the BO-FAR between 1250 and 590 °C by adjusting the oxidizer dilution ratio. At these two extreme temperature conditions, we delivered Titanium tetraisopropoxide (precursor) to the BO-FAR for producing carbon-free titanium dioxide (TiO2) gel particles. Our results show approximately tenfold increase in the primary particle size of the TiO2 aerosol gel with the increase in the flame temperature. Pure rutlile and anatase phase TiO2 were formed at the high and low temperature conditions, respectively. Our work demonstrates that non-carbonaceous aerosol gel materials can be synthesized through a rapid single-step gas-phase process with high purity and tunable material properties.