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Microfluidic fabrication of ceramic microspheres with controlled morphologies
Author(s) -
Liang Shuaishuai,
Li Jiang,
Li Xiaomin,
Man Jia,
Nunes Janine K.,
Chen Haosheng
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of the american ceramic society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.9
H-Index - 196
eISSN - 1551-2916
pISSN - 0002-7820
DOI - 10.1111/jace.15549
Subject(s) - ceramic , dispersity , materials science , microfluidics , fabrication , laplace pressure , microsphere , chemical engineering , sphericity , nanotechnology , diffusion , composite material , polymer chemistry , medicine , alternative medicine , physics , engineering , pathology , quantum mechanics , surface tension , thermodynamics
In this study, the diffusion‐induced external gelation is combined with a microfluidic technique to prepare monodisperse ZrO 2 ceramic microspheres. The gelation of sol droplets is traced by fluorescence visualization of the local pH, and it illustrates the effect of the external concentration of triggering agent (tetramethylethylenediamine, TMEDA ) on the formation of the gel network, which results in 3 kinds of deformation of the gel particles. The deformation mechanism mainly lies in the imbalanced Laplace pressure exerted on the gel network during the competition between the gelation and the drying processes. By regulating the concentration of TMEDA , the monodisperse ZrO 2 ceramic microspheres with high sphericity can be readily fabricated.