Abstract
There is a huge variety of plasma processes for synthesis of nanoparticulate powders. They may be grouped with respect to operating temperature, which is the essential parameter with respect to the properties of the products. In view of industrial production, the highest degree of maturity is found in high temperature processes working under ambient pressure. For products, where well-defined properties are demanded, low temperature microwave plasma processes are best suited. Additionally, these processes allow coating of the produced particles, even with organic phases. Other processes where plasmas are involved, such as laser or flame processes coupled with electric fields have, to some extent, a high potential for development.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson H, Kodas T, Smith DT (1989) Vapor phase processing of powders: plasma synthesis and aerosol decomposition. Ceram Bull 68:996–1000
Boulos MI (1984) Modelling of plasma processes. In: Szekely J, Apelian D (eds) Plasma processing and synthesis of materials symposium. North-Holland, New York, NY, USA, pp 53–60
Brenner JR, Harkness JBL, Knickelbein MB, Krumdick GK, Marshall CL (1997) Microwave plasma synthesis of carbon-supported ultrafine metal particles. Nanostruct Mater 8:1–17
Buss RJ (1997) Rf-plasma synthesis of nanosize silicon carbide and nitride, SAND97–0039
Castillo IA, Munz RJ (2005) Inductively coupled plasma synthesis of CeO2-based powders from liquid solutions for SOFC electrolytes. Plasma Chem Plasma Process 25:87–107
Chau JLH, Hsu MK, Hsie CC, Kao CC (2005) Microwave plasma synthesis of silver nanopowders. Mater Lett 59:905–908
Chau CLH, Hsu MK, Kao CC (2006) Microwave plasma synthesis of Co and SiC-coated Co nanopowders. Mater Lett 60:947–951
Cota-Sanchez G, Soucy G, Huczko A, Lange H (2005) Induction plasma synthesis of fullerenes and nanotubes using carbon black-nickel particles. Carbon 43:3153–3166
Cruden BA, Cassell AM, Ye Q, Meyyappan M (2003) Reactor design considerations in the hot filament/direct current plasma synthesis of carbon nanofibers. J Appl Phys 94:4070–4078
David B, Pizúrová N, Schneeweiss O, Bezdicka P, Morjan I, Alexandrescu R (2004) Preparation of iron/graphite core-shell structured nanoparticles. J Alloy Compd 378:112–116
Feldman Y, Frey GL, Homyonfer M, Lyakhovitskaya V, Margulis M, Cohen H, Hodes G, Hutchison JL, Tenne R (1996) Bulk synthesis of inorganic fullerene-like MS2 from the respective trioxides and the reaction mechanism. J Am Chem Soc 118:5362–5367
Goortani BM, Mendoza N, Proulx N (2006) Synthesis of SiO2 nanoparticles in RF plasma reactors: effect of feed rate and quench gas injection. Int J Chem React Eng 4: Article A33
Grabis J, Kuzjukevics A, Rasmane D, Mogensen M, Linderoth SJ (1998) Preparation of nanocrystalline YSZ powders by the plasma technique. J Mater Sci 33:723–728
He Y, Li X, Swihart MT (2005) Laser-driven aerosol synthesis of nickel nanoparticles. Chem Mater 17:1017–1026
Heberlein JVR (1989) Plasma technology in materials processing. Cryst Prop Prep 22–25:707–726
Kalyanaraman R, Yoo S, Krupshankara MS, Sudarshan TS, Dowding RJ (1998) Synthesis and consolidation of iron nanopowders. Nanostruct Mater 10:1379–1392
Kammler HK, Mädler L, Pratsinis SE (2001) Flame synthesis of nanoparticles. Chem Eng Technol 24:583–596
Kammler H (2002) Synthesis of oxide nanoparticles with closely controlled characteristics. PhD thesis, ETH Zürich #14622
Kaneko T, Odaka Y, Tada E, Hatakeyama R (2002) Generation and control of field-aligned flow velocity shear in a fully ionized collisionless plasma. Rev Sci Instrum 73:4218–4222
Karthikeyan J, Berndt CC, Tikkanen J, Reddy S, Herman H (1997) Plasma spray synthesis of nanomaterial powders and deposits. Mater Sci Eng A238:275–286
Kim K (2005) Plasma synthesis and characterization of nanocrystalline aluminum nitride particles by aluminum plasma jet discharge. J Cryst Growth 283:540–546
Ko TS, Yang S, Hsu HC, Chu CP, Lin HF, Liao SC, Lu TC, Kuo HC, Hsieh WF, Wang SC (2006) ZnO nanopowders fabricated by dc thermal plasma synthesis. Mater Sci Eng B 134:54–58
Kortshagen U, Bhandarkar U (1999) Modeling of particulate coagulation in low pressure plasmas. Phys Rev E 60:887–898
Langmuir I (1928) Oscillations in ionized gases. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 14:627–637
Li Q, Sasaki T, Koshizaki N (1999) Pressure dependence of the morphology and size of cobalt (II, III) oxide nanoparticles prepared by pulsed-laser ablation. Appl Phys A69:115–118
MacDonald AD (1966) Microwave breakdown in gases. Wiley & Sons, New York
Mangolini L, Jurbergs D, Rogojina E, Kortshagen U (2006) Plasma synthesis and liquid-phase surface passivation of brightly luminescent Si nanocrystals. Phys Stat Sol (c) 3:3975–3978
Manolache S, Denes F (2000) Synthesis of nanoparticles under cold-plasma conditions. J Photopolym Sci Technol 13:51–62
Marzik JV, Suplinskas RJ, Wilke RHT, Canfield PC, Finnemore DK, Rindfleisch M, Margolies J, Hannahs ST (2005) Plasma synthesized doped B powders for MgB2 superconductors. Physica C 423:83–88
Matsui I (2006) Preparation of magnetic nanoparticles by pulsed plasma chemical vapor synthesis. J Nanopart Res 8:429–443
Mohai J, Szepvölgyi I, Bertot M, Mohai J, Gubicza T, Ungar T (2001) Thermal plasma synthesis of zinc ferrite nanopowders. Solid State Ion 141–142:163–168
Morjan I, Alexandrescu R, Soare I, Dumitrache F, Sandu I, Voicu I, Crunteanu A, Vasile E, Ciupina V, Martelli S (2003) Nanoscale powders of different iron oxide phases prepared by continuous laser irradiation of iron pentacarbonyl-containing gas precursors. Mater Sci Eng C 23:211–216
Pratsinis SE (1998) Flame aerosol synthesis of ceramic powders. Prog Energy Combust Sci 24:197–219
Puretzky AA, Geohegan DB, Fan X, Pennycook SJ (2000) Dynamics of single-wall carbon nanotube synthesis by laser vaporization. Appl Phys A70:153–160
Rao NP, Girshick SL, McMurrey PH, Heberlein JVR (1999) US-patent #5,874,134
Schulz O, Hausner H (1987) Plasmasynthese keramischer Sinterpulver für Hochleistungskeramik. Elektrowärme, Int Edt 45:174–182
Schulz O, Hausner H (1992) Plasma synthesis of silicon nitride powders. Ceram Int 18:177–183
Schweigert IV, Schweigert J (1996) Coagulation in a low-temperature plasma. J Phys D 29:655–659
Shimada M, Azuma Y, Okuyama Y, Hayashi Y, Tanabe E (2006) Plasma synthesis of light emitting gallium nitride nanoparticles using a novel microwave-resonant cavity. Jpn J Appl Phys 45:328–332
Son S, Swaminathan R, McHenry MEJ (2003) Structure and magnetic properties of RF thermal plasma synthesized Mn and Mn–Zn ferrite nanoparticles. Appl Phys 93:7495–7497
Szekely J (1984) An overview of plasma processing. In: Szekely J, Apelian D (eds) Plasma processing and synthesis of materials symposium. North-Holland, New York, NY, USA, pp 1–11
Szépvölgyi J, Mohail I, Gubicza J, Sáray I (2004) RF plasma synthesis of ferrite nanopowders from metallurgical wastes. Key Eng Mater 264–268:2359–2362
Taylor PR, Vidal EE (1999) Thermal plasma synthesis of ceramic powders. In: Marquis EDS (ed) Powder materials: current research and industrial practices. Proceedings of symposium held during 1999 TMS fall meeting. TMS Miner Metals & Mater Soc, Warrendale, PA, USA, pp 173–185
Tekna Plasma Systems Inc (2007) Canada. http://www.tekna.com.
Tong L, Reddy RG (2005) Synthesis of titanium carbide nano-powders by thermal plasma. Scripta Materialia 52:1253–1258
Troitskiy VN, Domashnev IA, Kurkin EN, Grebtsova OM, Berestenko VI, Balikhin IL, Gurov SV (2003) Synthesis and characteristics of ultra-fine superconducting powders in the Nb–N, Nb–N–C, Nb–Ti–N–C systems. J Nanopart Res 5:521–528
Vissokov G, Grancharov I, Tsvetanov T (2003) On the plasma-chemical synthesis of nanopowders. Plasma Sci Technol 5(6):2039–2050
Vollath D (2007) Plasma synthesis of nanoparticles. Kona 25:39–55
Vollath D, Sickafus KE (1992a) Synthesis of nanosized ceramic powders by microwave plasma reactions. Nanostruct Mater 1:427–437
Vollath D, Sickafus KE (1993) Synthesis of nanosized ceramic nitride powders by micro-wave supported plasma reactions. Nanostruct Mater 2:451–456
Vollath D, Szabó DV (1994) Nanocoated particles: a special type of ceramic powder. Nanostruct Mater 8:927–938
Vollath D, Szabó DV (1998) Synthesis of nanocrystalline MoS2 and WS2 in microwave plasma. Mater Lett 35:236–244
Vollath D, Szabó VS (2000) Nanoparticles from compounds with layered structures. Acta Materialia 48:953–967
Vollath D, Szabó DV (2002) Synthesis of nanopowders by the microwave plasma process—basic considerations and perspectives for scaling-up. In: Choy KL (ed) Innovative processing of films and nanocrystalline powders. Imperial College Press, London
Vollath D, Szabó DV (2004) Synthesis and properties of nanocomposites. Adv Eng Mater 6:117–127
Vollath D, Szabó DV (2006) The microwave plasma process—a versatile process to synthesise nanoparticulate materials. J Nanopart Res 8:417–418
Vollath D, Szabó DV, Fuchs J (1999) Synthesis and properties of ceramic-polymer composites. Nanostruct Mater 12:433–438
Wang Y, Qin Y, Li G, Cui Z, Zhang Z (2005) One-step synthesis and optical properties of blue titanium suboxide nanoparticles. J Cryst Growth 282:402–406
Wang Z, Liu Y, Zeng X (2006) One-step synthesis of γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles by laser ablation. Powder Technol 161:65–68
Zak A, Feldman Y, Alperovich V, Rosentsveig R, Tenne R (2000) Growth mechanism of MoS2 fullerene-like nanoparticles by gas-phase synthesis. J Am Chem Soc 122:11108–11116
Ziemann PJ, Kittelson DB, McMurry PH (1996) Effects of particle shape and chemical composition on the electron impact charging properties of submicron inorganic particles. J Aerosol Sci 27:587–606
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vollath, D. Plasma synthesis of nanopowders. J Nanopart Res 10 (Suppl 1), 39–57 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-008-9427-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-008-9427-7