Recent Trends in Nanomaterials: Challenges and Opportunities

Introduction

While nanoparticle synthesis and organization are useful resources for nanotechnology, processing nanoparticles or nanopowders into bulk shapes while maintaining their nanosized is a difficult task in structural and engineering applications. Nanoparticle synthesis and assembly methods typically use liquid, solid, or gas phase precursors, chemical or physical deposition techniques, and chemical reactivity or physical compaction to incorporate the nanostructure building blocks into the final material framework (Jalali et al., 2014). The bottom-up approach to nanomaterials synthesis begins with the development of nanostructured building blocks (nanoparticles), which are then assembled into the final substance. The formulation of powder components using aerosol and sol-gel methods, followed by compaction of the components into the final substance, is an example of this method. These techniques can process nanoparticles with diameters varying from 1 nm to 10 nm, a stable crystal structure, surface derivatization, and a high degree of monodispersity (Chen et al., 2012). The production of nanoparticles in the gas phase, also known as aerosol processing, is focused on evaporation and condensation (nucleation and growth) in a sub atmospheric inert gas atmosphere, with processing methods like combustion burn, laser ablation, chemical vapor condensation, spray pyrolysis, electro spray, and plasma spray. Sol-gel production, on the other hand, is a wet chemical synthesis method that involves gelation, precipitation, and hydrothermal treatment to produce nanoparticles. Inverted micelles, polymer-matrix architecture based on block copolymers or polymer blends, and ex situ particle-capping techniques may also help monitor the size and stiffness of nanoparticles (Ali et al., 2021). Sonochemical deposition, hydrodynamic cavitation, and microemulsion processing are several other nanoparticle synthesis techniques. An acoustic cavitation is a form of acoustic cavitation that occurs in sonochemistry.

Huang et al. (2021) studied a temporary localized hot zone with extremely high temperature gradient and pressure can be created by the operation. The degradation of the sonochemical precursor (e.g., organometallic solution) and the production of nanoparticles are aided by certain abrupt temperature and pressure shifts. The method may be used to make a huge amount of content for commercial purposes. Nanoparticles are generated by hydrodynamic cavitation, which involves the formation and release of gas bubbles inside a sol-gel solution (Polachan et al., 2021). The solgel was quickly pressurized in a supercritical drying chamber and exposed to cavitation disruption and high temperature heating (Meisak et al., 2021). The approach has been combined. The nucleation, formation, and quenching of nanoparticles are all caused by the erupted hydrodynamic bubble (Zheng et al., 2012). The cavitation chamber's pressure and solution retention period may be adjusted to monitor particle size. Another critical processing method is microemulsions, which are widely used for the synthesis of metallic, semiconductor, and magnetic nanoparticles (Zheng et al., 2010). This microemulsions are generated spontaneously without the need for substantial mechanical agitation by regulating the very low interfacial tension (10.3 mN/m) by applying a cosurfactant (e.g., an intermediate chain length alcohol). The method may be used to mass-produce nanoparticles on a wide scale with reasonably low-cost hardware (Swekis et al., 2021). The top-down strategy starts with a good starting content and then sculpts features out of it. This method is close to how the semiconductor industry creates devices out of an electronic substrate (silicon) by using pattern formulation (such as electron beam lithography) and pattern-transfer processes (such as reactive-ion etching) with the necessary spatial resolution to create nanoscale structures (Thanner and Eibelhuber, 2021). This field of nanostructure formation has a lot of potential and is a major concern for the electronics industry.