One-Step Synthesis of Highly Monodisperse ZnO Core-Shell Microspheres in Microfluidic Devices

摘要

The controllable fabrication of highly monodisperse dielectric and semiconductor microspheres with tunable particle size and morphology has gained more and more interest for many scientific and technological applications. In this work, we report a facile method for the fabrication of monosized zinc oxide (ZnO) microcapsules with a combination of sol-gel and droplet microfluidics techniques. The as-synthesized microspheres were analysed and characterized using optical and scanning electron microscopies. The effect of droplet stabilizing surfactant and the flow rates of the continuous and the dispersed phase on droplet size were investigated. The results show that the synthesized ZnO microspheres exhibit excellent monodispersity with a hollow feature whose thickness was found about 0.7 Pm, in agreement with theoretical calculations. Keywords: droplets, microfluidics, ZnO microspheres.